PROPERTY  IN  LAND 


PROPERTY  IN  LAND 


A  PASSAGE- AT- ARMS 

BETWEEN  THE 

DUKE  OF  ARGYLL  AND  HENRY  GEORGE 


NEW  YORK 

CHARLES  L.  WEBSTER  &  COMPANY 
1893 


ft  ta  Cs 


\ 


% 

!' . 

CONTENTS. 


X. — “The  Prophet  of  San  Francisco,”  by  the  Duke  of  Argyll, 
in  the  Nineteenth  Century  for  April,  1884. 

[I. — “The  Reduction  to  Iniquity,”  by  Henry  George,  in  the 
Nineteenth  Century  for  July,  1884,  from  advance  sheets. 


■?  %%%-\ 


V 


PROPERTY  IN  LARD. 


I. 

THE  PROPHET  OF  SAN  FRANCISCO. 

BY  THE  DUKE  OF  ARGYLL. 

There  are  some  advantages  in  being  a  citizen — even 
a  very  humble  citizen — in  the  Republic  of  Letters.  If 
any  man  has  ever  written  anything  on  matters  of  serious 
concern,  which  others  have  read  with  interest,  he  will 
very  soon  find  himself  in  contact  with  curious  diversities 
of  mind.  Subtle  sources  of  sympathy  will  open  up  be¬ 
fore  him  in  contrast  with  sources,  not  less  subtle,  of  an¬ 
tipathy,  and  both  of  them  are  often  interesting  and  in¬ 
structive  in  the  highest  degree. 

A  good  many  years  ago  a  friend  of  mine,  whose 
opinion  1  greatly  value,  was  kind  enough  to  tell  me  of 
his  approval  of  a  little  book  which  I  had  then  lately 
published.  As  he  was  a  man  of  pure  taste,  and 
naturally  much  more  inclined  to  criticism  than  assent, 
his  approval  gave  me  pleasure.  But  being  a  man  also 
very  honest  and  outspoken,  he  took  care  to  explain  that 
his  approval  was  not  unqualified.  He  liked  the  whole 
book  except  one  chapter,  “  in  which,”  he  added,  “it 
seems  to  me  there  is  a  good  deal  of  nonsense.” 

There  was  no  need  to  ask  him  what  that  chapter  was. 
I  knew  it  yery  well,  It  could  be  none  other  than  a 

b 


8 


PROPERTY  IK  LAKD. 


chapter  called  “  Law  in  Politics,”  which  was  devoted  to 
the  question  how  far,  in  human  conduct  and  affairs,  we 
can  trace  the  Reign  of  Law  in  the  same  sense,  or  in  a 
sense  very  closely  analogous  to  that  in  which  we  can 
trace  it  in  the  physical  sciences.  There  were  several 
tilings  in  that  chapter  which  my  friend  was  not  predis¬ 
posed  to  like.  In  the  first  place  he  was  an  active 
politician,  and  such  men  are  sure  to  feel  the  reasoning  to 
be  unnatural  and  unjust  which  tends  to  represent  all  the 
activities  of  their  life  as  more  or  less  the  results  of  cir¬ 
cumstance.  In  the  second  place,  he  was  above  all  other 
things  a  Free  Trader,  and  the  governing  idea  of  that 
school  is  that  every  attempt  to  interfere  by  law  with 
anything  connected  with  trade  or  manufacture  is  a  folly 
if  not  a  crime.  Now,  one  main  object  of  my  “  non¬ 
sense”  chapter  was  to  show  that  this  doctrine  is  not  true 
as  an  absolute  proposition.  It  drew  a  line  between  two 
provinces  of  legislation,  in  one  of  which  such  inter¬ 
ference  had  indeed  been  proved  to  be  mischievous,  but 
in  the  other  of  which  interference  had  been  equally 
proved  to  be  absolutely  required.  Protection,  it  was 
shown,  had  been  found  to  be  wrong  in  all  attempts  to 
regulate  the  value  or  the  price  of  anything.  But  Pro¬ 
tection,  it  was  also  shown,  had  been  found  to  be  right 
and  necessary  in  defending  the  interests  of  life,  health, 
and  morals.  As  a  matter  of  historical  fact,  it  was 
pointed  out  that  during  the  present  century  there  had 
been  two  steady  movements  on  the  part  of  Parliament — 
one  a  movement  of  retreat,  the  other  a  movement  of 
advance.  Step  by  step  legislation  had  been  abandoned 
in  all  endeavors  to  regulate  interests  purely  economic  ; 
while,  step  by  step,  not  less  steadily,  legislation  had  been 
adopted  more  and  more  extensively  for  the  regulation  of 
matters  in  which  those  higher  interests  were  concerned* 


THE  PROPHET  OF  SAN  FRANCISCO. 


9 


Moreover,  I  had  ventured  to  represent  both  these  move¬ 
ments  as  equally  important — the  movement  in  favor  of 
Protection  in  one  direction  being  quite  as  valuable  as  the 
movement  against  Protection  in  another  direction.  It 
was  not  in  the  nature  of  things  that  my  friend  should 
admit  this  equality,  or  even  any  approach  to  a  compari¬ 
son  between  the  two  movements.  In  promoting  one  of 
them  he  had  spent  his  life,  and  the  truths  it  represented 
were  to  him  the  subject  of  passionate  conviction.  Of 
the  other  movement  he  had  been  at  best  only  a  passive 
spectator,  or  had  followed  its  steps  with  cold  and  critical 
toleration.  To  place  them  on  anything  like  the  same 
level  as  steps  of  advance  in  the  science  of  government, 
could  not  but  appear  to  him  as  a  proposition  involving 
“  a  good  deal  of  nonsense.55  But  critics  may  them¬ 
selves  be  criticised  ;  and  sometimes  authors  are  in  the 
happy  position  of  seeing  behind  both  the  praise  and  the 
blame  they  get.  In  this  case  1  am  unrepentant.  I  am 
firmly  convinced  that  the  social  and  political  value  of  the 
principle  which  has  led  to  the  repeal  of  all  lav/s  for  the 
regulation  of  price  is  not  greater  than  the  value  of  the 
principle  which  has  led  to  the  enactment  of  many  laws 
for  the  regulation  of  labor.  If  the  Factory  Acts  and 
many  others  of  the  like  kind  had  not  been  passed  we 
should  for  many  years  have  been  hearing  a  hundred 
u  bitter  cries55  for  every  one  which  assails  us  now,  and 
the  social  problems  which  still  confront  us  would  have 
been  much  more  difficult  and  dangerous  than  they  are. 

Certain  it  is  that  if  the  train  of  thought  which  led  up 
to  this  conclusion  was  distasteful  to  some  minds,  it 
turned  out  to  be  eminently  attractive  to  many  others. 
And  of  this,  some  years  later,  I  had  a  curious  proof. 
From  the  other  side  of  the  world,  and  from  a  perfect 
stranger,  there  came  a  courteous  letter  accompanied  by 


10 


PROPERTY  IN  LAND. 


the  present  of  a  book.  The  author  had  read  mine,  and 
he  sent  his  own.  In  spite  of  prepossessions,  he  had  con¬ 
fidence  in  a  candid  hearing.  The  letter  was  from  Mr. 
Henry  George,  and  the  book  was  “  Progress  and 
Poverty.”  Both  were  then  unknown  to  fame  ;  nor  was 
it  possible  for  me  fully  to  appreciate  the  compliment 
conveyed  until  I  found  that  the  book  was  directed  to 
prove  that  almost  all  the  evils  of  humanity  are  to  be 
traced  to  the  very  existence  of  landowners,  and  that  by 
divine  right  land  could  only  belong  to  everybody  in 
general  and  to  nobody  in  particular. 

The  credit  of  being  open  to  conviction  is  a  great 
credit,  and  even  the  heaviest  drafts  upon  it  cannot  well 
be  made  the  subject  of  complaint.  And  so  I  could  not 
be  otherwise  than  flattered  when  this  appeal  in  the  sphere 
of  politics  was  followed  by  another  in  the  sphere  of 
science.  Another  author  was  good  enough  to  present 
me  with  his  book  ;  and  1  found  that  it  was  directed  to 
prove  that  all  the  errors  of  modern  physical  philosophy 
arise  from  the  prevalent  belief  that  our  planet  is  a  globe. 
In  reality  it  is  flat.  Elaborate  chapters,  and  equally 
elaborate  diagrams  are  devoted  to  the  proof.  At  first  I 
thought  that  the  argument  was  a  joke,  like  Archbishop 
Whately’s  “Historic  Doubts.”  But  I  soon  saw  that 
the  author  was  quite  as  earnest  as  Mr.  Henry  George. 
Lately  I  have  seen  that  both  these  authors  have  been 
addressing  public  meetings  with  great  success  ;  and  con¬ 
sidering  that  all  obvious  appearances  and  the  language 
of  common  life  are  against  the  accepted  doctrine  of 
Copernicus,  it  is  perhaps  not  surprising  that  the  popular 
audiences  which  have  listened  to  the  two  reformers 
have  evidently  been  almost  as  incompetent  to  detect  the 
blunders  of  the  one  as  to  see  through  the  logical  fallacies 
of  the  other,  Brit  the  Californian  philosopher  has  one 


THE  PROPHET  OF  SAN  FRANCISCO. 


11 


immense  advantage.  Nobody  has  any  personal  interest 
in  believing  that  the  world  is  flat.  But  many  persons 
may  have  an  interest,  very  personal  indeed,  in  believing 
that  they  have  a  right  to  appropriate  a  share  in  their 
neighbor’s  vineyard. 

There  are,  at  least,  a  few  axioms  in  life  on  which  we 
are  entitled  to  decline  discussion.  Even  the  most  scep¬ 
tical  minds  have  done  so.  The  mind  of  Yoltaire  was 
certainly  not  disposed  to  accept  without  question  any  of 
the  beliefs  that  underlay  the  rotten  political  system 
which  he  saw  and  hated.  He  was  one  of  those  who 
assailed  it  with  every  weapon,  and  who  ultimately  over¬ 
threw  it.  Among  his  fellows  in  that  work  there  was  a 
perfect  revelry  of  rebellion  and  of  unbelief.  In  the 
grotesque  procession  of  new  opinions  which  had  begun 
to  pass  across  the  stage  while  he  was  still  upon  it,  this 
particular  opinion  against  property  in  land  had  been 
advocated  by  the  famous  “Jean  Jacques.”  Yoltaire 
turned  his  powerful  glance  upon  it,  and  this  is  how  he 
treated  it  :  * 

B.  Avez-vous  oublie  que  Jean -Jacques,  un  des  peres  de  l’Eglise 
Moderne,  a  dit,  que  le  premier  qui  osa  clore  et  cultiver  un  terrain  fut 
l’ennemi  du  genre  humain,  qu’il  fallait  Pexterminer,  et  que  les  fruits 
sont  a  tous,  et  que  la  terre  n’est  a  personne?  N’avons-nous  pas  deja 
examine  ensemble  cette  belle  proposition  si  utile  a  la  Societe  ? 

A.  Quel  est  ce  Jean- Jacques  ?  II  faut  que  ce  soit  quelque  Hun,  bel 
esprit,  qui  ait  ecrit  cette  impertinence  abominable,  ou  quelque  mau- 
vais  plaisant,  buffo  magro ,  qui  ait  voulu  rire  de  ce  que  le  monde  en- 
tier  a  de  plus  serieux.  .  .  . 

For  my  own  part,  however,  1  confess  that  the  mock¬ 
ing  spirit  of  Yoltaire  is  not  the  spirit  in  which  I  am 
ever  tempted  to  look  at  the  fallacies  of  Communism. 
Apart  altogether  from  the  appeal  which  was  made  to  me 

*  Dictiormaire  ffhilosophigue,  1764,  art,  “  Loi  Naturelle,” 


12 


PROPERTY  IN  LAND. 


by  this  author,  I  have  always  felt  the  high  interest  which 
belongs  to  those  fallacies,  because  of  the  protean  forms 
in  which  they  tend  to  revive  and  reappear,  and  because 
of  the  call  they  make  upon  us  from  time  to  time  to  ex¬ 
amine  and  identify  the  fundamental  facts  which  do  really 
govern  the  condition  of  mankind.  Never,  perhaps,  have 
communistic  theories  assumed  a  form  more  curious,  or 
lent  themselves  to  more  fruitful  processes  of  analysis, 
than  in  the  writings  of  Mr.  Henry  George.  These  writ¬ 
ings  now  include  a  volume  on  “  Social  Problems,”  pub¬ 
lished  recently.  It  represents  the  same  ideas  as  those 
which  inspire  the  work  on  “  Progress  and  Poverty.” 
They  are  often  expressed  in  almost  the  same  words,  but 
they  exhibit  some  development  and  applications  which 
are  of  high  interest  and  importance.  In  this  paper  I 
shall  refer  to  both,  but  for  the  present  I  can  do  no  more 
than  group  together  some  of  the  more  prominent  feat¬ 
ures  of  this  new  political  philosophy. 

In  the  first  place,  it  is  not  a  little  remarkable  to  find 
one  of  the  most  extreme  doctrines  of  Communism  advo¬ 
cated  by  a  man  who  is  a  citizen  of  the  United  States. 
We  have  been  accustomed  to  associate  that  country  with 
boundless  resources,  and  an  almost  inexhaustible  future. 
It  has  been  for  two  centuries,  and  it  still  is,  the  land  of 
refuge  and  the  land  of  promise  to  millions  of  the  human 
race.  And  among  all  the  States  which  are  there 
u  united,”  those  which  occupy  the  Far  West  are  credited 
with  the  largest  share  in  this  abundant  present,  and  this 
still  more  abundant  future.  Yet  it  is  out  of  these  United 
States,  and  out  of  the  one  State  which,  perhaps,  above 
all  others,  has  this  fame  of  opulence,  that  we  have  a  soli¬ 
tary  voice,  prophesying  a  future  of  intolerable  wroes. 
He  declares  that  all  the  miseries  of  the  Old  World  are 
already  firmly  established  in  the  New.  He  declares  that 


THE  PROPHET  OF  SAH  FRANCISCO.  1$ 

they  are  increasing  in  an  ever-accelerating  ratio,  growing 
with  the  growth  of  the  people,  and  strengthening  with 
its  apparent  strength.  He  tells  ns  of  crowded  cities,  of 
pestilential  rooms,  of  men  and  women  struggling  for 
employments  however  mean,  of  the  breathlessness  of 
competition,  of  the  extremes  of  poverty  and  of  wealth — 
in  short,  of  all  the  inequalities  of  condition,  of  all  the 
pressures  and  suffocations  which  accompany  the  struggle 
for  existence  in  the  oldest  and  most  crowded  societies  in 
the  world. 

I  do  not  pretend  to  accept  this  picture  as  an  accurate 
representation  of  the  truth.  At  the  best  it  is  a  picture 
only  of  the  darkest  shadows  with  a  complete  omission  of 
the  lights.  The  author  is  above  all  things  a  Pessimist, 
and  he  is  under  obvious  temptations  to  adopt  this  kind 
of  coloring.  He  has  a  theory  of  his  own  as  to  the  only 
remedy  for  all  the  evils  of  humanity  ;  and  this  remedy 
he  knows  to  be  regarded  with  aversion  both  by  the  intel¬ 
lect  and  by  the  conscience  of  his  countrymen.  He  can 
only  hope  for  success  by  trying  to  convince  Society  that 
it  is  in  the  grasp  of  some  deadly  malady.  Large  allow¬ 
ance  must  be  made  for  this  temptation.  Still,  after 
making  every  allowance,  it  remains  a  most  remarkable 
fact  that  such  a  picture  can  be  drawn  by  a  citizen  of  the 
United  States.  There  can  be  no  doubt  whatever  that  at 
least  as  regards  many  of  the  great  cities  of  the  Union,  it 
is  quite  as  true  a  picture  of  them  as  it  would  be  of  the 
great  cities  of  Europe.  And  even  as  regards  the  popula¬ 
tion  of  the  States  as  a  whole,  other  observers  have  re¬ 
ported  on  the  feverish  atmosphere  which  accompanies  its 
eager  pursuit  of  wealth,  and  on  the  strain  which  is 
everywhere  manifest  for  the  attainment  of  standards  of 
living  and  of  enjoyment  which  are  never  reached  except 
by  a  very  few.  So  far,  at  least,  we  may  accept  Mr. 


14 


PROPERTY  m  LAND. 


George’s  representations  as  borne  out  by  independent 
evidence. 

But  here  we  encounter  another  most  remarkable  cir¬ 
cumstance  in  Mr.  George’s  books.  The  man  who  gives 
this  dark — this  almost  black —picture  of  the  tendencies 
of  American  progress,  is  the  same  man  who  rejects  with 
indignation  the  doctrine  that  population  does  everywhere 
tend  to  press  in  the  same  way  upon  the  limits  of  subsist¬ 
ence.  This,  as  is  well  known,  is  the  general  proposition 
which  is  historically  connected  with  the  name  of  Malthus, 
although  other  writers  before  him  had  unconsciously  felt 
and  assumed  its  truth.  Since  his  time  it  has  been  almost 
universally  admitted  not  as  a  theory  but  as  a  fact,  and 
one  of  the  most  clearly  ascertained  of  all  the  facts  of 
economic  science.  But,  like  all  Communists,  Mr. 
George  hates  the  very  name  of  Malthus.  He  admits  and 
even  exaggerates  the  fact  of  pressure  as  applicable  to  the 
people  of  America.  He  admits  it  as  applicable  to  the 
people  of  Europe,  and  of  India,  and  of  China.  He 
admits  it  as  a  fact  as  applicable  more  or  less  obviously  to 
every  existing  population  of  the  globe.  But  he  will  not 
allow  the  fact  to  be  generalized  into  a  law.  He  will  not 
allow  this — because  the  generalization  suggests  a  cause 
which  he  denies,  and  shuts  out  another  cause  which  he 
asserts.  But  this  is  not  a  legitimate  reason  for  refusing 
to  express  phenomena  in  terms  as  wide  and  general  as 
their  actual  occurrence.  Never  mind  causes  until  we 
have  clearly  ascertained  facts  ;  but  when  these  are  clearly 
ascertained  let  us  record  them  fearlessly  in  terms  as  wide 
as  the  truth  demands.  If  there  is  not  a  single  popula¬ 
tion  on  the  globe  which  does  not  exhibit  the  fact  of 
pressure  more  or  less  severe  on  the  limits  of  their  actual 
subsistence,  let  us  at  least  recognize  this  fact  in  all  its 
breadth  and  sweep.  The  diversities  of  laws  and  institu 


tHE  PROPHET  OF  SAX  FRANCISCO. 


is 


tions,  of  habits  and  of  manners,  are  almost  infinite. 
Yet  amid  all  these  diversities  this  one  fact  is  universal. 
Mr.  George  himself  is  the  latest  witness.  He  sees  it  to 
be  a  fact — a  terrible  and  alarming  fact,  in  his  opinion — 
as  applicable  to  the  young  and  hopeful  society  of  the 
New  World.  In  a  country  where  there  is  no  monarch, 
no  aristocracy,  no  ancient  families,  no  entails  of  land, 
no  standing  armies  worthy  of  the  name,  no  pensions,  no 
courtiers,  where  all  are  absolutely  equal  before  the  law, 
there,  even  there — in  this  paradise  of  Democracy,  Mr. 
George  tells  us  that  the  pressure  of  the  masses  upon  the 
means  of  living  and  enjoyment  which  are  open  to  them 
is  becoming  more  and  more  severe,  and  that  the  inequal¬ 
ities  of  men  are  becoming  as  wide  and  glaring  as  in  the 
oldest  societies  of  Asia  and  of  Europe. 

The  contrast  between  this  wonderful  confirmation  of 
Malthusian  facts,  and  the  vehement  denunciation  of 
Malthusian  “law,”  is  surely  one  of  the  curiosities  of 
literature.  But  the  explanation  is  clear  enough.  Mr. 
George  sees  that  facts  common  to  so  many  nations  must 
be  due  to  some  cause  as  common  as  the  result.  But,  on 
the  other  hand,  it  would  not  suit  his  theory  to  admit  that 
this  cause  can  possibly  be  anything  inherent  in  the  con¬ 
stitution  of  Man,  or  in  the  natural  System  under  which 
lie  lives.  From  this  region,  therefore,  he  steadily  averts 
his  face.  There  are  a  good  many  other  facts  in  human 
nature  and  in  human  conditions  that  have  this  common 
and  universal  character.  There  are  a  number  of  such 
facts  connected  with  the  mind,  another  number  con¬ 
nected  with  the  body,  and  still  another  number  connected 
with  the  opportunities  of  men.  But  all  of  these  Mr. 
George  passes  over — in  order  that  he  may  fix  attention 
upon  one  solitary  fact — namely,  that  in  all  nations  in¬ 
dividual  men,  and  individual  communities  of  men,  have 


16 


PROPERTY  IX  LAXD. 


hitherto  been  allowed  to  acquire  bits  of  land  and  to  deal 
with  them  as  their  own. 

The  distinction  between  Natural  Law  and  Positive  In¬ 
stitution  is  indeed  a  distinction  not  to  be  neglected. 
But  it  is  one  of  the  very  deepest  subjects  in  all  philoso¬ 
phy,  and  there  are  many  indications  that  Mr.  George  has 
dipped  into  its  abysmal  waters  with  the  very  shortest  of 
sounding  lines.  Human  laws  are  evolved  out  of  human 
instincts,  and  these  are  among  the  gifts  of  nature. 
Reason  may  pervert  them,  and  Reason  is  all  the  more 
apt  to  do  so  when  it  begins  to  spin  logical  webs  out  of  its 
own  bowels.  But  it  may  be  safely  said  that  in  direct 
proportion  as  human  laws,  and  the  accepted  ideas  on 
which  they  rest,  are  really  universal,  in  that  same  pro¬ 
portion  they  have  a  claim  to  be  regarded  as  really 
natural,  and  as  the  legitimate  expression  of  fundamental 
truths.  Sometimes  the  very  men  who  set  up  as  re¬ 
formers  against  such  laws,  and  denounce  as  ‘  stupid  ”  * 
even  the  greatest  nations  which  have  abided  by  them, 
are  themselves  unconsciously  subject  to  the  same  ideas, 
and  are  only  working  out  of  them  some  perverted  appli¬ 
cation. 

For  here,  again,  we  come  upon  another  wonderful 
circumstance  affecting  Mr.  George’s  writings.  I  have 
spoken  of  Mr.  George  as  a  citizen  of  the  United  States, 
and  also  as  a  citizen  of  the  particular  State  of  California. 
In  this  latter  capacity,  as  the  citizen  of  a  democratic 
government,  he  is  a  member  of  that  government,  which 
is  the  government  of  the  whole  people.  Now,  what  is 
the  most  striking  feature  about  the  power  claimed  by 
that  government,  and  actually  exercised  by  it  every  day  ? 

*  This  is  the  epithet  applied  by  Mr.  George  to  the  English  people, 
because  they  will  persist  in  allowing  what  all  other  nations  have 
equally  allowed. 


THE  PROPHET  OE  SAN  FRANCISCO. 


1? 


It  is  the  power  of  excluding  the  whole  human  race  abso¬ 
lutely,  except  on  its  own  conditions,  from  a  large  portion 
of  the  earth’s  surf  ace — a  portion  so  large  that  it  embraces 
no  less  than  ninety- nine  millions  of  acres,  or  156,000 
square  miles  of  plain  and  valley,  of  mountain  and  of  hill, 
of  lake  and  river,  and  of  estuaries  of  the  sea.  Yet  the 
community  which  claims  and  exercises  this  exclusive 
ownership  over  this  enormous  territory  is,  as  compared 
with  its  extent,  a  mere  handful  of  men.  The  whole 
population  of  the  State  of  California  represents  only  the 
fractional  number  of  5-5  to  the  square  mile.  It  is  less 
than  one  quarter  of  the  population  of  London.  If  the 
whole  of  it  could  be  collected  into  one  place  they  would 
hardly  make  a  black  spot  in  the  enormous  landscape  if  it 
were  swept  by  a  telescope.  Such  is  the  little  company 
of  men  which  claims  to  own  absolutely  and  exclusively 
this  enormous  territory.  Yet  it  is  a  member  of  this 
community  who  goes  about  the  world  preaching  the 
doctrine,  as  a  doctrine  of  Divine  right,  that  land  is  to  be 
as  free  as  the  atmosphere,  which  is  the  common  property 
of  all,  and  in  which  no  exclusive  ownership  can  be 
claimed  by  any.  It  is  true  that  Mr.  George  does 
denounce  the  conduct  of  his  own  Government  in  the 
matter  of  its  disposal  of  land.  But  strange  to  say,  he 
does  not  denounce  it  because  it  claims  this  exclusive 
ownership.  On  the  contrary,  he  denounces  it  because  it 
ever  consents  to  part  with  it.  Hot  the  land  only,  but 
the  very  atmosphere  of  California — to  use  his  own 
phraseology — is  to  be  held  so  absolutely  and  so  ex¬ 
clusively  as  the  property  of  this  community,  that  it  is 
never  to  be  parted  with  except  on  lease  and  for  such 
annual  rent  as  the  government  may  determine.  Who 
gave  this  exclusive  ownership  over  this  immense  terri¬ 
tory  to  this  particular  community  ?  Was  it  conquest  ? 


PROPERTY  IX  LAND. 


18 

And  if  so,  may  it  not  be  as  rightfully  acquired  by  any 
who  are  strong  enough  to  seize  it  ?  And  if  exclusive 
ownership  is  conferred  by  conquest,  then  has  it  not  been 
open  to  every  conquering  army,  and  to  every  occupying 
host  in  all  ages  and  in  all  countries  of  the  world,  to 
establish  a  similar  ownership,  and  to  deal  with  it  as  they 
please  ? 

It  is  at  this  point  that  we  catch  sight  of  one  aspect  of 
Mr.  George’s  theory  in  which  it  is  capable  of  at  least  a 
rational  explanation.  The  question  how  a  comparatively 
small  community  of  men  like  the  first  gold-diggers  of 
California  and  their  descendants  can  with  best  advantage 
use  or  employ  its  exclusive  claims  of  ownership  over  so 
vast  an  area,  is  clearly  quite  an  open  question.  It  is  one 
thing  for  any  given  political  society  to  refuse  to  divide 
its  vacant  territory  among  individual  owners.  It  is  quite 
another  thing  for  a  political  society,  which  for  ages  has 
recognized  such  ownership  and  encouraged  it,  to  break 
faith  with  those  who  have  acquired  such  ownership  and 
have  lived  and  labored,  and  bought  and  sold,  and  willed 
upon  the  faith  of  it.  If  Mr.  George  can  persuade  the 
State  of  which  he  is  a  citizen,  and  the  Government  of 
which  he  is  in  this  sense  a  member,  that  it  would  be 
best  never  any  more  to  sell  any  bit  of  its  unoccupied 
territory  to  any  individual,  by  all  means  let  him  try  to 
do  so,  and  some  plausible  arguments  might  be  used  in 
favor  of  such  a  course.  But  there  is  a  strong  presump¬ 
tion  against  it  and  him.  The  question  of  the  best 
method  of  disposing  of  such  territory  has  been  before 
every  one  of  our  great  colonies,  and  before  the  United 
States  for  several  generations  ;  and  the  universal  instinct 
of  them  all  has  been  that  the  individual  ownership  of 
land  is  the  one  great  attraction  which  they  can  hold  out 
to  the  settlers  whom  it  is  their  highest  interest  to  invite 


THE  PROPHET  OP  SAH  PRAHCISCO. 


19 


and  to  establish.  They  know  that  the  land  of  a  country 
is  never  so  well  “  nationalized  55  as  when  it  is  committed 
to  the  ownership  of  men  whose  interest  it  is  to  make  the 
most  of  it.  They  know  that  under  no  other  inducement 
could  men  be  found  to  clear  the  soil  from  stifling  forests,  or 
to  water  it  from  arid  wastes,  or  to  drain  it  from  pestilen¬ 
tial  swamps,  or  to  enclose  it  from  the  access  of  wild 
animals,  or  to  defend  it  from  the  assaults  of  savage 
tribes.  Accordingly  their  verdict  has  been  unanimous  ; 
and  it  has  been  given  under  conditions  in  which  they 
were  free  from  all  traditions  except  those  which  they 
carried  with  them  as  parts  of  their  own  nature,  in  har¬ 
mony  and  correspondence  with  the  nature  of  things 
around  them.  I  do  not  stop  to  argue  this  question  here  ; 
but  I  do  stop  to  point  out  that  both  solutions  of  it — the 
one  quite  as  much  as  the  other — involve  the  exclusive 
occupation  of  land  by  individuals,  and  the  doctrine  of 
absolute  ownership  vested  in  particular  communities,  as 
against  all  the  rest  of  mankind.  Both  are  equally  in¬ 
compatible  with  the  fustian  which  compares  the  exclusive 
occupation  of  land  to  exclusive  occupation  of  the  atmos¬ 
phere.  Supposing  that  settlers  could  be  found  willing 
to  devote  the  years  of  labor  and  of  skill  which  are  neces¬ 
sary  to  make  wild  soils  productive,  under  no  other 
tenure  than  that  of  a  long  “  improvement  lease,55  pay¬ 
ing  of  course  for  some  long  period  either  no  rent  at  all, 
or  else  a  rent  which  must  be  purely  nominal  ;  supposing 
this  to  be  true,  still  equally  the  whole  area  of  any  given 
region  would  soon  be  in  the  exclusive  possession  for  long 
periods  of  time  of  a  certain  number  of  individual 
farmers,  and  would  not  be  open  to  the  occupation  by  the 
poor  of  all  the  world.  Thus  the  absolute  ownership 
which  Mr.  George  declares  to  be  blasphemous  against 
God  and  Nature,  is  still  asserted  on  behalf  of  some  mere 


20 


PROPERTY  IK  LAKD. 


fraction  of  the  human  race,  and  this  absolute  ownership 
is  again  doled  out  to  the  members  of  this  small  com¬ 
munity,  and  to  them  alone,  in  such  shares  as  it  considers 
to  be  most  remunerative  to  itself. 

And  here  again,  for  the  third  time,  we  come  upon  a 
most  remarkable  testimony  to  facts  in  Mr.  George’s 
book,  the  import  and  bearing  of  which  he  does  not  ap¬ 
parently  perceive.  Of  course  the  question  whether  it  is 
most  advantageous  to  any  given  society  of  men  to  own 
and  cultivate  its  own  lands  in  severalty  or  in  common,  is 
a  question  largely  depending  on  the  conduct  and  the 
motives  and  the  character  of  governments,  as  compared 
with  the  conduct  and  the  character  and  the  motives  of 
individual  men.  In  the  disposal  and  application  of 
wrealth,  as  well  as  in  the  acquisition  of  it,  are  men  more 
pure  and  honest  when  they  act  in  public  capacities  as 
members  of  a  Government  or  of  a  Legislature,  than 
when  they  act  in  private  capacities  toward  their  fellow- 
men  ?  Is  it  not  notoriously  the  reverse  ?  Is  it  not 
obvious  that  men  will  do,  and  are  constantly  seen  doing, 
as  politicians,  what  they  would  be  ashamed  to  do  in 
private  life  ?  And  has  not  this  been  proved  under  all 
the  forms  which  government  has  taken  in  the  history  of 
political  societies  ?  Lastly,  1  will  ask  one  other  question 
• — Is  it  not  true  that,  to  say  the  very  least,  this  inherent 
tendency  to  corruption  has  received  no  check  from  the 
democratic  constitutions  of  those  many  “  new  worlds’  ’ 
in  which  kings  were  left  behind,  and  aristocracies  have 
not  had  time  to  be  established  ? 

These  are  the  very  questions  which  Mr.  George 
answers  with  no  faltering  voice  ;  and  it  is  impossible  to 
disregard  his  evidence.  He  declares  over  and  over 
again,  in  language  of  virtuous  indignation,  that  govern¬ 
ment  in  the  United  States  is  everywhere  becoming  more 


THE  PROPHET  OE  SAN  ERANCISCO.  21 

and  more  corrupt.  Not  only  are  the  Legislatures  cor¬ 
rupt,  but  that  last  refuge  of  virtue  even  in  the  worst 
societies — the  Judiciary — is  corrupt  also.  In  none  of 
the  old  countries  of  the  world  has  the  very  name  of 
politician  fallen  so  low  as  in  the  democratic  communities 
of  America.  Nor  w’ould  it  be  true  to  say  that  it  is  the 
wealthy  classes  who  have  corrupted  the  constituencies. 
These — at  least  to  a  very  large  extent — are  themselves 
corrupt.  Probably  there  is  no  sample  of  the  Demos 
more  infected  with  corruption  than  the  Demos  of  New 
York.  Its  management  of  the  municipal  rates  is  alleged 
to  be  a  system  of  scandalous  jobbery.  Now,  the  won¬ 
derful  tiling  is  that  of  all  this  Mr.  George  is  thoroughly 
aware.  He  sees  it,  he  repeats  it  in  every  variety  of  form. 
Let  us  hear  a  single  passage  :  * 

It  behooves  us  to  look  facts  in  the  face.  The  experiment  of  popu¬ 
lar  government  in  the  United  States  is  clearly  a  failure.  Not  that  it 
is  a  failure  everywhere  and  in  everything.  An  experiment  of  this 
kind  does  not  have  to  be  fully  worked  out  to  be  proved  a  failure. 
But,  speaking  generally  of  the  whole  country,  from  the  Atlantic  to 
the  Pacific,  and  from  the  Lakes  to  the  Gulf,  our  government  by  the 
people  has  in  large  degree  become,  is  in  larger  degree  becoming, 
government  by  the  strong  and  unscrupulous. 

Again,  I  say  that  it  is  fair  to  remember  that  Mr.  George 
is  a  Pessimist.  But  while  remembering  this,  and  making 
every  possible  allowance  for  it,  we  must  not  less  remem¬ 
ber  that  his  evidence  does  not  stand  alone.  In  the 
United  States,  from  citizens  still  proud  of  their  country, 
and  out  of  the  United  States,  from  representative 
Americans,  1  have  been  told  of  transactions  from  per¬ 
sonal  knowledge  which  conclusively  indicated  a  condition 
of  things  closely  corresponding  to  the  indictment  of  Mr. 
George.  At  all  events  we  cannot  be  wrong  in  our  con- 


*  “Social  Problems,”  p.  22. 


22 


PROPERTY  IK  LAKD. 


elusion  that  it  is  not  among  the  public  bodies  and 
Governments  of  the  States  of  America  that  we  are  to 
look  in  that  country  for  the  best  exhibitions  of  purity  or 
of  virtue. 

Yet  it  is  to  these  bodies — legislative,  administrative, 
and  judicial,  of  which  he  gives  us  such  an  account — that 
Mr.  George  would  confine  the  rights  of  absolute  owner¬ 
ship  in  the  soil.  It  is  these  bodies  that  he  would  consti¬ 
tute  the  sole  and  universal  landlord,  and  it  is  to  them  he 
would  confide  the  duty  of  assessing  and  of  spending  the 
rents  of  everybody  all  over  the  area  of  every  State.  He 
tells  us  that  a  great;  revenue,  fit  for  the  support  of  some 
such  great  rulers  as  have  been  common  in  the  Old 
World,  could  be  afforded  out  of  one  half  the  “  waste  and 
stealages”  of  such  Municipalities  as  his  own  at  San  Fran¬ 
cisco.  What  would  be  the  “  waste  and  stealages”  of  a 
governing  body  having  at  its  disposal  the  whole  agricult¬ 
ural  and  mining  wealth  of  such  States  as  California  and 
Texas,  of  Illinois  and  Colorado  ? 

But  this  is  not  all.  The  testimony  which  is  borne  by 
Mr.  George  as  to  what  the  governing  bodies  of  America 
now  are  is  as  nothing  to  the  testimony  of  his  own  writ¬ 
ings  as  to  what  they  would  be  — if  they  were  ever  to 
adopt  his  system,  and  if  they  were  ever  to  listen  to  his 
teaching.  Like  all  Communists,  he  regards  Society  not 
as  consisting  of  individuals  whose  separate  welfare  is  to 
be  the  basis  of  the  welfare  of  the  whole,  but  as  a  great 
abstract  Personality,  in  which  all  power  is  to  be  centred, 
and  to  which  all  separate  rights  and  interests  are  to  be 
subordinate.  If  this  is  to  be  the  doctrine,  we  might  at 
least  have  hoped  that  with  such  powers  committed  to 
Governments,  as  against  the  individual,  corresponding 
duties  and  responsibilities,  toward  the  individual,  would 
have  been  recognized  as  an  indispensable  accompani- 


THE  PROPHET  OF  SAN-  FRAKCISCO.  23 

ment.  If,  for  example,  every  political  society  as  a 
whole  is  an  abiding  Personality,  with  a  continuity  of 
rights  over  all  its  members,  we  might  at  least  have  ex¬ 
pected  that  the  continuous  obligation  of  honor  and  good 
faith  would  have  been  recognized  as  equally  binding  on 
this  Personality  in  all  its  relations  with  those  who  are 
subject  to  its  rule.  But  this  is  not  at  all  Mr.  George’s 
view.  On  the  contrary,  he  preaches  systematically  not 
only  the  high  privilege,  but  the  positive  duty  of  re¬ 
pudiation.  He  is  not  content  with  urging  that  no  more 
bits  of  unoccupied  land  should  be  ever  sold,  but  he  in¬ 
sists  upon  it  that  the  ownership  of  every  bit  already  sold 
shall  be  resumed  without  compensation  to  the  settler  who 
has  bought  it,  who  has  spent  upon  it  years  of  labor,  and 
who  from  first  to  last  has  relied  on  the  security  of  the 
State  and  on  the  honor  of  its  Government.  There  is  no 
mere  practice  of  corruption  which  has  ever  been  alleged 
against  the  worst  administrative  body  in  any  country 
that  can  be  compared  in  corruption  with  the  desolating 
dishonor  of  this  teaching.  In  olden  times,  under  violent 
and  rapacious  rulers,  the  Prophets  of  Israel  and  of  Judah 
used  to  raise  their  voices  against  all  forms  of  wrong  and 
robbery,  and  they  pronounced  a  special  benediction  upon 
him  who  sweareth  to  his  own  hurt  and  changeth  not. 
But  the  new  Prophet  of  San  Francisco  is  of  a  different 
opinion.  Ahab  would  have  been  saved  all  his  trouble, 
and  Jezebel  would  have  been  saved  all  her  tortuous  in¬ 
trigues  if  only  they  could  have  had  beside  them  the 
voice  of  Mr.  Henry  George.  Elijah  was  a  fool.  What 
right  could  Naboth  have  to  talk  about  the  “  inheritance 
of  his  fathers’  ’  ?  *  His  fathers  could  have  no  more  right 
to  acquire  the  ownership  of  those  acres  on  the  Hill  of 


*  X  Kings  21  ;  3, 


24 


PROPERTY  IN  LAND. 


Jezreel  than  he  could  have  to  continue  in  the  usurpation 
of  it.  No  matter  what  might  be  his  pretended  title,  no 
man  and  no  body  of  men  could  give  it  : — not  Joshua  nor 
the  Judges  ;  not  Saul  nor  David  ;  not  Solomon  in  all 
his  glory — could  “  make  sure55  to  Naboth5s  fathers  that 
portion  of  God’s  earth  against  the  undying  claims  of  the 
head  of  the  State,  and  of  the  representative  of  the  whole 
people  of  Israel. 

But  now  another  vista  of  consequence  opens  up  before 
us.  If  the  doctrine  be  established  that  no  faith  is  to  be 
kept  with  the  owners  of  land,  will  the  same  principle  not 
apply  to  tenancy  as  well  as  ownership  ?  If  one  genera¬ 
tion  cannot  bind  the  next  to  recognize  a  purchase,  can 
one  generation  bind  another  to  recognize  a  lease  ?  If 
the  one  promise  can  be  broken  and  ought  to  be  broken, 
why  should  the  other  be  admitted  to  be  binding  ?  If 
the  accumulated  value  arising  out  of  many  years,  or  even 
generations,  of  labor,  can  be  and  ought  to  be  appro¬ 
priated,  is  there  any  just  impediment  against  seizing  that 
value  every  year  as  it  comes  to  be  ?  If  this  new  gospel 
be  indeed  gospel,  why  should  not  this  Californian  form 
of  66  faith  unfaithful 55  keep  us  perennially,  and  forever 
“  falsely  true55  ? 

Nay,  more,  is  there  any  reason  why  the  doctrine  of 
repudiation  should  be  confined  to  pledges  respecting 
either  the  tenancy  or  the  ownership  of  land  ?  This 
question  naturally  arose  in  the  minds  of  all  who  read 
with  any  intelligence  “  Progress  and  Poverty55  when  it 
first  appeared.  But  the  extent  to  which  its  immoral 
doctrines  might  be  applied  was  then  a  matter  of  infer¬ 
ence  only,  however  clear  that  inference  might  be.  If 
all  owners  of  land,  great  and  small,  might  be  robbed,  and 
ought  to  be  robbed  of  that  which  Society  had  from  time 
immemorial  allowed  them  and  encouraged  them  to  ac- 


THE  PROPHET  OF  SAN  FRANCISCO. 


25 


quire  and  to  call  their  own  ;  if  the  thousands  of  men, 
women,  and  children  who  directly  and  indirectly  live  on 
rent,  whether  in  the  form  of  returns  to  the  improver,  or 
of  mortgage  to  the  capitalist,  or  jointure  to  the  widow, 
or  portion  to  the  children,  are  all  equally  to  be  ruined  by 
the  confiscation  of  the  fund  on  which  they  depend — are 
there  not  other  funds  which  would  be  all  swept  into  the 
same  net  of  envy  and  of  violence  ?  In  particular,  what 
is  to  become  of  that  great  fund  on  which  also  thousands 
and  thousands  depend — men,  women,  and  children,  the 
aged,  the  widow,  and  the  orphan — the  fund  which  the 
State  has  borrowed  and  which  constitutes  the  Debt  of 
Nations  ?  Even  in  “  Progress  and  Poverty”  there  were 
dark  hints  and  individual  passages  which  indicated  the 
goal  of  all  its  reasoning  in  this  direction.  But  men’s 
intellects  just  now  are  so  flabby  on  these  subjects,  and 
they  are  so  fond  of  shaking  their  heads  when  property  in 
land  is  compared  with  property  in  other  things,  that 
such  suspicions  and  forebodings  as  to  the  issue  of  Mr. 
George’s  arguments  would  to  many  have  seemed  over¬ 
strained.  Fortunately,  in  his  later  book  he  has  had  the 
courage  of  his  opinions,  and  the  logic  of  false  premises 
has  steeled  his  moral  sense  against  the  iniquity  of  even 
the  most  dishonorable  conclusions.  All  National  Debts 
are  as  unjust  as  property  in  land  ;  all  such  Debts  are  to 
be  treated  with  the  sponge.  As  no  faith  is  due  to  land- 
owners,  or  to  any  who  depend  on  their  sources  of  in¬ 
come,  so  neither  is  any  faith  to  be  kept  with  bond¬ 
holders,  or  with  any  who  depend  on  the  revenues  which 
have  been  pledged  to  them.  The  Jew  who  may  have 
lent  a  million,  and  the  small  tradesman  who  may  have 
lent  his  little  savings  to  the  State — the  trust-funds  of 
children  and  of  widows  which  have  been  similarly  lent — 
are  all  equally  to  be  the  victims  of  repudiation.  When 


26 


PROPERTY  IK  LAKD. 


we  remember  the  enormous  amount  of  the  national  debts 
of  Europe  and  of  the  American  States,  and  the  vast 
number  of  persons  of  all  kinds  and  degrees  of  wealth 
whose  property  is  invested  in  these  “  promises  to  pay,” 
we  can  perhaps  faintly  imagine  the  ruin  which  would  be 
caused  by  the  gigantic  fraud  recommended  by  Mr. 
George.  Take  England  alone.  About  seven  hundred 
and  fifty  millions  is  the  amount  of  her  Public  Debt. 
This  great  sum  is  held  by  about  181,721  persons,  of 
whom  the  immense  majority — about  111,000 — receive 
dividends  amounting  to  400 1.  a  year  and  under.  Of 
these,  again,  by  far  the  greater  part  enjoy  incomes  of 
less  than  100Z.  a  year.  And  then  the  same  principle  is 
of  course  applicable  to  the  debt  of  all  public  bodies  ; 
those  of  the  Municipalities  alone  which  are  rapidly  in¬ 
creasing,  would  now  amount  to  something  like  150 
millions  more. 

Everything  in  America  is  on  a  gigantic  scale,  even  its 
forms  of  villainy,  and  the  villainy  advocated  by  Mr. 
George  is  an  illustration  of  this  as  striking  as  the  Mam¬ 
moth  Caves  of  Kentucky,  or  the  frauds  of  the  celebrated 
“  Tammany  Ring”  in  New  York.  The  world  has 
never  seen  such  a  Preacher  of  Unrighteousness  as  Mr. 
Henry  George.  For  he  goes  to  the  roots  of  things,  and 
shows  us  how  unfounded  are  the  rules  of  probity,  and 
what  mere  senseless  superstitions  are  the  obligations 
which  have  been  only  too  long  acknowledged.  Let  us 
hear  him  on  National  Debts,  for  it  is  an  excellent  speci¬ 
men  of  his  childish  logic,  and  of  his  profligate  con¬ 
clusions  : 

The  institution  of  public  debts,  like  the  institution  of  private  prop¬ 
erty  in  land,  rests  upon  the  preposterous  assumption  that  one  gen¬ 
eration  may  bind  another  generation.  If  a  man  were  to  come  to  me 
and  say,  “Here  is  a  promissory  note  which  your  great-grandfathe* 


THE  PROPHET  OF  SAN  FRANCISCO. 


27 


gave  to  my  great-grandfather,  and  which  yon  will  oblige  me  by  pay¬ 
ing/’  I  would  laugh  at  him  and  tell  him  that  if  he  wanted  to  collect 
his  note  he  had  better  hunt  up  the  man  who  made  it :  that  I  had 
nothing  to  do  with  my  great-grandfather’s  promises. 

And  if  he  were  to  insist  upon  payment,  and  to  call  my  attention  to 
the  terms  of  the  bond  in  which  my  great-grandfather  expressly  stip¬ 
ulated  with  his  great-grandfather  that  I  should  pay  him,  I  would  only 
laugh  the  more,  and  be  more  certain  that  he  was  a  lunatic.  To  such 
a  demand  any  one  of  us  would  reply  in  effect,  “  My  great-grandfather 
was  evidently  a  knave  or  a  joker,  and  your  great-grandfather  was  cer¬ 
tainly  a  fool,  which  quality  you  surely  have  inherited  if  you  expect 
me  to  pay  you  money  because  my  great-grandfather  promised  that  I 
should  do  so.  He  might  as  well  have  given  your  great-grandfather  a 
draft  upon  Adam,  or  a  check  upon  the  First  National  Bank  of  the 
Moon.” 

Yet  upon  this  assumption  that  ascendants  may  bind  descendants, 
that  one  generation  may  legislate  for  another  generation,  rests  the 
assumed  validity  of  our  land  titles  and  public  debts.* 

Yet  even  in  this  wonderful  passage  we  have  not 
touched  the  bottom  of  Mr.  George’s  lessons  in  the  phil¬ 
osophy  of  spoliation.  If  we  may  take  the  property  of 
those  who  have  trusted  to  our  honor,  surely  it  must  be 
still  more  legitimate  to  take  the  property  of  those  who 
have  placed  in  us  no  such  confidence.  If  we  may  fleece 
the  public  creditor,  it  must  be  at  least  equally  open  to  us 
to  fleece  all  those  who  have  invested  otherwise  their 
private  fortunes.  All  the  other  accumulations  of  in-  „ 
dustry  must  be  as  rightfully  liable  to  confiscation. 
Whenever  “  the  people”  see  any  large  handful  in  the 
hands  of  any  one,  they  have  a  right  to  have  it — in  order 
to  save  themselves  from  any  necessity  of  submitting  to 
taxation. 

Accordingly  we  find,  as  usual,  that  Mr.  George  has  a 
wonderful  honesty  in  avowing  what  hitherto  the  unin¬ 
structed  world  has  been  agreed  upon  considering  as  dis- 


*  “Social  Problems,”  pp.  213-14, 


28 


PROPERTY  IN  LAND. 


honesty.  But  this  time  the  avowal  comes  out  under 
circumstances  which  are  deserving  of  special  notice. 
We  all  know  that  not  many  years  ago  the  United  States 
was  engaged  in  a  civil  war  of  long  duration,  at  one  time 
apparently  of  doubtful  issue,  and  on  which  the  national 
existence  hung.  I  was  one  of  those — not  too  many  in 
this  country — who  held  from  the  beginning  of  that 
terrible  contest  that  “  the  North”  were  right  in  fighting 
it.  Lord  Russell,  on  a  celebrated  occasion,  said  that 
they  were  fighting  for  66  dominion.”  Yes;  and  for 
what  else  have  nations  ever  fought,  and  by  what  else 
than  dominion,  in  one  sense  or  another — have  great 
nations  ever  come  to  be  ?  The  Demos  has  no  greater 
right  to  fight  for  dominion  than  Kings  ;  but  it  has  the 
same.  But  behind  and  above  the  existence  of  the  Union 
as  a  nation  there  was  the  further  question  involved 
whether,  in  this  nineteenth  century  of  the  Christian  era, 
there  was  to  be  established  a  great  dominion  of  civilized 
men  which  was  to  have  negro  slavery  as  its  fundamental 
doctrine  and  as  the  cherished  basis  of  its  constitution. 
On  both  of  these  great  questions  the  people  of  the 
Northern  States — in  whatever  proportions  the  one  or  the 
other  issue  might  affect  individual  minds — had  before 
them  as  noble  a  cause  as  any  w^hich  has  ever  called  men 
to  arms.  It  is  a  cause  which  will  be  forever  associated 
in  the  memory  of  mankind  with  one  great  figure — the 
figure  of  Abraham  Lincoln,  the  best  and  highest  repre¬ 
sentative  of  the  American  people  in  that  tremendous 
crisis.  In  nothing  has  the  bearing  of  that  people  been 
more  admirable  than  in  the  patient  and  willing  submis¬ 
sion  of  the  masses,  as  of  one  man,  not  only  to  the  deso¬ 
lating  sacrifice  of  life  which  it  entailed,  but  to  the  heavy 
and  lasting  burden  of  taxation  which  was  inseparable 
from  it.  It  is  indeed  deplorable — nothing  I  have  ever 


THE  PROPHET  OE  SAX  FRAXClSCO. 


29 


read  in  all  literature  has  struck  me  as  so  deplorable — than 
that  at  this  time  of  day,  when  by  patient  continuance  in 
well-doing  the  burden  has  become  comparatively  light, 
and  there  is  a  near  prospect  of  its  final  disappearance, 
one  single  American  citizen  should  be  found  who  appre¬ 
ciates  so  little  the  glory  of  his  country  as  to  express  his 
regret  that  they  did  not  begin  this  great  contest  by  an 
act  of  stealing.  Yet  this  is  the  case  with  Mr.  Henry 
George.  In  strict  pursuance  of  his  dishonest  doctrines 
of  repudiation  respecting  public  debts,  and  knowing  that 
the  war  could  not  have  been  prosecuted  without  funds, 
he  speaks  with  absolute  bitterness  of  the  folly  which  led 
the  Government  to  “shrink”  from  at  once  seizing  the 
whole,  or  all  but  a  mere  fraction,  of  the  property  of  the 
few  individual  citizens  who  had  the  reputation  of  being 
exceptionally  rich.  If,  for  example,  it  were  known  that 
any  man  had  made  a  fortune  of  200,000^.,  the  Washing¬ 
ton  Government  ought  not  to  have  “  shrunk”  from  tak¬ 
ing  the  whole — except  some  200 Z.,  which  remainder 
might,  perhaps,  by  a  great  favor,  be  left  for  such  sup¬ 
port  as  it  might  afford  to  the  former  owner.  And  so  by 
a  number  of  seizures  of  this  kind,  all  over  the  States,  the 
war  might  possibly  have  been  conducted  for  the  benefit 
of  all  at  the  cost  of  a  very  few.* 

It  may  be  worth  while  to  illustrate  how  this  would 
have  worked  in  a  single  instance.  When  I  was  in  New 
York,  a  few  years  ago,  one  of  the  sights  which  was 
pointed  out  to  me  was  a  house  of  great  size  and  of  great 
beauty  both  in  respect  to  material  and  to  workmanship. 
In  these  respects  at  least,  if  not  in  its  architecture,  it 

*  Mr.  George’s  words  are  these  :  “  If,  when  we  called  on  men  to  die 
for  their  country,  we  had  not  shrunk  from  taking,  if  necessary,  nine 
hundred  and  ninety-nine  thousand  dollars  from  every  millionaire, 
we  need  not  have  created  any  debt.”— “  Social  Problems,”  p.  216. 


30 


PROPERTY  m  LAKE. 


was  equal  to  any  of  the  palaces  which  are  owned  by 
private  citizens  in  any  of  the  richest  capitals  of  the  Old 
World.  It  was  built  wholly  of  pure  white  marble,  and 
the  owner,  not  having  been  satisfied  with  any  of  the 
marbles  of  America,  had  gone  to  the  expense  of  import¬ 
ing  Italian  marble  for  the  building.  This  beautiful  and 
costly  house  was,  I  was  further  told,  the  property  of  a 
Scotchman  who  had  emigrated  to  America  with  no  other 
fortune  and  no  other  capital  than  his  own  good  brains. 
He  had  begun  by  selling  ribbons.  By  selling  cheap,  and 
for  ready  money,  but  always  also  goods  of  the  best 
quality,  he  had  soon  acquired  a  reputation  for  dealings 
which  were  eminently  advantageous  to  those  who 
bought.  But  those  who  bought  were  the  public,  and  so 
a  larger  and  a  larger  portion  of  the  public  became  eager 
to  secure  the  advantages  of  this  exceptionally  moderate 
and  honest  dealer.  With  the  industry  of  his  race  he  had 
also  its  thrift,  and  the  constant  turning  of  his  capital  on 
an  ever-increasing  scale,  coupled  with  his  own  limited 
expenditure,  had  soon  led  to  larger  and  larger  savings. 
These,  again,  had  been  judiciously  invested  in  promoting 
every  public  undertaking  which  promised  advantage  to 
his  adopted  country,  and  which,  by  fulfilling  that 
promise,  could  alone  become  remunerative.  And  so  by 
a  process  which,  in  every  step  of  it,  was  an  eminent  ser¬ 
vice  to  the  community  of  which  he  was  a  member,  he 
became  what  is  called  a  millionaire.  Nor  in  the 
spending  of  his  wealth  had  he  done  otherwise  than  con¬ 
tribute  to  the  taste  and  splendor  of  his  country,  as  well 
as  to  the  lucrative  employment  of  its  people.  All 
Nature  is  full  of  the  love  of  ornament,  and  the  habita¬ 
tions  of  creatures,  even  the  lowest  in  the  scale  of  being, 
are  rich  in  coloring  and  in  carving  of  the  most  exquisite 
and  elaborate  decoration.  It  is  only  an  ignorant  and 


THE  PROPHET  OF  SAN  FRANCISCO. 


31 


uncultured  spirit  which  denounces  the  same  love  of 
ornament  in  Man,  and  it  is  a  stupid  doctrine  which  sees 
in  it  nothing  but  a  waste  of  means.  The  great  mer¬ 
chant  of  New  York  had  indeed  built  his  house  at  great 
cost  ;  but  this  is  only  another  form  of  saying  that  he  had 
spent  among  the  artificers  of  that  city  a  great  sum  of 
money,  and  had  in  the  same  proportion  contributed  to 
the  only  employment  by  which  they  live.  In  every 
way,  therefore,  both  as  regards  the  getting  and  the 
spending  of  his  wealth,  this  millionaire  was  an  honor 
and  a  benefactor  to  his  country.  This  is  the  man  on 
whom  that  same  country  would  have  been  incited  by 
Mr.  Henry  George  to  turn  the  big  eyes  of  brutal  envy, 
and  to  rob  of  all  his  earnings.  It  is  not  so  much  the 
dishonesty  or  the  violence  of  such  teaching  that  strikes 
us  most,  but  its  unutterable  meanness.  That  a  great 
nation,  having  a  great  cause  at  stake,  and  representing 
in  the  history  of  the  world  a  life-and-death  struggle 
against  barbarous  institutions,  ought  to  have  begun  its 
memorable  war  by  plundering  a  few  of  its  own  citizens 
— this  is  surely  the  very  lowest  depth  which  has  ever 
been  reached  by  any  political  philosophy. 

And  not  less  instructive  than  the  results  of  this  phil¬ 
osophy  are  the  methods  of  its  reasoning,  its  methods  of 
illustration,  and  its  way  of  representing  facts.  Of  these 
we  cannot  have  a  better  example  than  the  passage  before 
quoted,  in  which  Mr.  Henry  George  explains  the  right 
of  nations  and  the  right  of  individuals  to  repudiate  an 
hereditary  debt.  It  is  well  to  see  that  the  man  who 
defends  the  most  dishonorable  conduct  on  the  part  of 
Governments  defends  it  equally  on  the  part  of  private 
persons.  The  passage  is  a  typical  specimen  of  the  kind 
of  stuff  of  which  Mr.  George’s  works  are  full.  The 
element  of  plausibility  in  it  is  the  idea  that  a  man  should 


32 


PROPERTY  IK  LAKD. 


not  be  held  responsible  for  promises  to  which  he  was  not 
himself  a  consenting  party.  This  idea  is  presented  by 
itself,  with  a  careful  suppression  of  the  conditions  which 
make  it  inapplicable  to  the  case  in  hand.  Hereditary 
debts  do  not  attach  to  persons  except  in  respect  to 
hereditary  possessions.  Are  these  possessions  to  be  kept 
while  the  corresponding  obligations  are  to  be  denied  ? 
Mr.  George  is  loud  on  the  absurdity  of  calling  upon  him 
to  honor  any  promise  which  his  great-grandfather  may 
have  made,  but  he  is  silent  about  giving  up  any  re¬ 
sources  which  his  great-grandfather  may  have  left. 
Possibly  he  might  get  out  of  this  difficulty  by  avowing 
that  he  would  allow  no  property  to  pass  from  one 
generation  to  another — not  even  from  father  to  son — 
that  upon  every  death  all  the  savings  of  every  individual 
should  be  confiscated  by  the  State.  Such  a  proposal 
would  not  be  one  whit  more  violent,  or  more  destructive 
to  society,  than  other  proposals  which  he  does  avow. 
But  so  far  as  I  have  observed,  this  particular  conse¬ 
quence  of  his  reasoning  is  either  not  seen,  or  is  kept  in 
the  dark.  With  all  his  apparent  and  occasional  honesty 
in  confronting  results  however  anarchical,  there  is  a  good 
deal  of  evidence  that  he  knows  how  to  conceal  his  hand. 
The  prominence  given  in  his  agitation  to  an  attack  on 
the  particular  class  of  capitalists  who  are  owners  of  land, 
and  the  total  or  comparative  silence  which  he  maintains 
on  his  desire  to  rob  fundholders  of  all  kinds,  and  espe¬ 
cially  the  public  creditor,  is  a  clear  indication  of  astrategy 
which  is  more  dexterous  than  honest.  And  so  it  may 
really  be  true  that  he  repudiates  all  hereditary  debt  be¬ 
cause  he  will  also  destroy  all  hereditary  succession  in  sav¬ 
ings  of  any  kind.  But  it  must  be  observed  that  even 
thus  he  cannot  escape  from  the  inconsistency  I  have 
pointed  out,  as  it  affects  all  public  debts.  These  have 


THE  PROPHET  OF  SAH  FRAHCISCO. 


33 


all  been  contracted  for  the  purpose  of  effecting  great 
national  objects,  such  as  the  preservation  of  national  in¬ 
dependence,  or  the  acquisition  of  national  territory,  or 
the  preparations  needed  for  national  defence.  The  State 
cannot  be  disinherited  of  the  benefits  and  possessions 
thus  secured,  as  individuals  may  be  disinherited  of  their 
fathers’  gains.  In  the  case  of  national  debts,  therefore, 
it  is  quite  clear  that  the  immorality  of  Mr.  George’s 
argument  is  as  conspicuous  as  the  childishness  of  its 
reasoning. 

But  there  are  other  examples,  quite  as  striking,  of  the 
incredible  absurdity  of  his  reasoning,  which  are  im¬ 
mediately  connected  with  his  dominant  idea  about  prop¬ 
erty  in  land.  Thus  the  notion  that  because  all  the 
natural  and  elementary  substances  which  constitute  the 
raw  materials  of  human  wealth  are  substances  derived 
from  the  ground,  therefore  all  forms  of  that  wealth  must 
ultimately  tend  to  concentration  in  the  hands  of  those 
who  own  the  land  ;  this  notion  must  strike  a  landowner 
as  one  worthy  only  of  Bedlam.  He  may  not  be  able  at 
a  moment’s  notice  to  unravel  all  the  fallacies  on  which  it 
rests,  and  he  may  even  be  able  to  see  in  it  the  mad 
mimicry  of  logic  which  deceives  the  ignorant.  But  it 
does  not  need  to  be  a  landowner  to  see  immediately  that 
the  conclusion  is  an  absurdity.  We  have  only  to  apply 
this  notion  in  detail  in  order  to  see  more  and  more 
clearly  its  discrepancy  with  fact.  Thus,  for  example, 
we  may  put  one  application  of  it  thus  :  All  houses  are 
built  of  materials  derived  from  the  soil,  of  stone,  of 
lime,  of  brick,  or  of  wood,  or  of  all  three  combined. 
But  of  these  materials  three  are  not  only  products  of 
the  soil,  but  parts  of  its  very  substance  and  material. 
Clearly  it  must  follow  that  the  whole  value  of  house 
property  must  end  in  passing  into  the  hands  of  those 


84 


PROPERTY  IK  LAKB. 


who  own  these  materials,  quarries  of  building  stone,  beds 
of  brick-earth,  beds  of  lime,  and  forests.  Unfortunately 
for  landowners,  this  wonderful  demonstration  does  not, 
somehow,  take  effect. 

But  Mr.  Henry  George’s  processes  in  matters  of 
reasoning  are  not  more  absurd  than  his  assumptions  in 
matters  of  fact.  The  whole  tone  is  based  on  the 
assumption  that  owners  of  land  are  not  producers,  and 
that  rent  does  not  represent,  or  represents  only  in  a  very 
minor  degree  the  interest  of  capital.  Even  an  American 
ought  to  know  better  than  this  ;  because,  although  there 
are  in  some  parts  of  the  United  States  immense  areas  of 
prairie  land  which  are  ready  for  the  plough  with  almost 
no  preliminary  labor,  yet  even  in  the  New  World  the 
areas  are  still  more  immense  in  which  the  soil  can  only 
be  made  capable  of  producing  human  food  by  the  hardest 
labor,  and  the  most  prolonged.  But  in  the  old  countries 
of  Europe,  and  especially  in  our  own,  every  landowner 
knows  well,  and  others  ought  to  know  a  little,  that  the 
present  condition  of  the  soil  is  the  result  of  generations 
of  costly  improvements,  and  of  renewed  and  reiterated 
outlays  to  keep  these  improvements  in  effective  order. 
Yet  on  this  subject  1  fear  that  many  persons  are  almost 
as  ignorant  as  Mr.  Henry  George.  My  own  experience 
now  extends  over  a  period  of  the  best  part  of  forty  years. 
During  that  time  I  have  built  more  than  fifty  home¬ 
steads  complete  for  man  and  beast ;  I  have  drained  and 
reclaimed  many  hundreds,  and  enclosed  some  thousands, 
of  acres.  In  this  sense  I  have  “  added  house  to  house 
and  field  to  field,”  not — as  pulpit  orators  have  assumed 
in  similar  cases — that  I  might  “  dwell  alone  in  the  land,” 
but  that  the  cultivating  class  might  live  more  comfort¬ 
ably,  and  with  better  appliances  for  increasing  the  prod¬ 
uce  of  the  soil.  I  know  no  more  animating  scene  than 


THE  PROPHET  OP  SAtf  FRAKCISOO. 


35 


that  presented  to  ns  in  the  essays  and  journals  which 
give  an  account  of  the  agricultural  improvements 
effected  in  Scotland  since  the  close  of  the  Civil  W ars  in 
1745.  Thousands  and  thousands  of  acres  have  been  re¬ 
claimed  from  bog  and  waste.  Ignorance  has  given  place 
to  science,  and  barbarous  customs  of  immemorial 
strength  have  been  replaced  by  habits  of  intelligence  and 
of  business.  In  every  county  the  great  landowners,  and 
very  often  the  smaller,  were  the  great  pioneers  in  a  proc¬ 
ess  which  has  transformed  the  whole  face  of  the  coun¬ 
try.  And  this  process  is  still  in  full  career.  If  I  men¬ 
tion  again  my  own  case,  it  is  because  1  know  it  to  be 
only  a  specimen,  and  that  others  have  been  working  on 
a  still  larger  scale.  During  the  four  years  since  Mr. 
George  did  me  the  honor  of  sending  to  me  a  book 
assuming  that  landowners  are  not  producers,  1  find  that 
I  have  spent  on  one  property  alone  the  sum  of  40,000Z. 
entirely  on  the  improvement  of  the  soil.  Moreover,  I 
know  that  this  outlay  on  my  own  part,  and  similar  out¬ 
lay  on  the  part  of  my  neighbors,  so  far  from  having 
power  to  absorb  and  concentrate  in  our  hands  all  other 
forms  of  wealth,  is  unable  to  secure  anything  like  the 
return  which  the  same  capital  would  have  won — and  won 
easily — in  many  other  kinds  of  enterprise.  I  am  in 
possession  of  authentic  information  that  on  one  great 
estate  in  England  the  outlay  on  improvements  purely 
agricultural,  has,  for  twenty-one  years  past,  been  at  the 
rate  of  35,000Z.  a  year,  while  including  outlay  on 
churches  and  schools,  it  has  amounted  in  the  last  forty 
years  to  nearly  2,000,000Z.  sterling.  To  such  outlays 
landowners  are  incited  very  often,  and  to  a  great  extent, 
by  the  mere  love  of  seeing  a  happier  landscape  and  a 
more  prosperous  people.  From  much  of  the  capital  so 
invested  they  often  seek  no  return  at  all,  and  from  very 


36 


PROPERTY  IK  LAHD. 


little  of  it  indeed  do  they  ever  get  a  high  rate  of  interest. 
And  yet  the  whole— every  farthing  of  it — goes  directly 
to  the  public  advantage.  Production  is  increased  in  full 
proportion,  although  the  profit  on  that  production  is 
small  to  the  owner.  There  has  been  grown  more  corn, 
more  potatoes,  more  turnips  ;  there  has  been  produced 
more  milk,  more  butter,  more  cheese,  more  beef,  more 
mutton,  more  pork,  more  fowls,  and  eggs,  and  all  these 
articles  in  direct  proportion  to  their  abundance  have  been 
sold  at  lower  prices  to  the  people.  When  a  man  tells 
me,  and  argues  on  steps  of  logic  which  he  boasts  as  ir¬ 
refutable,  that  in  all  this,  1  and  others  have  been  serv¬ 
ing  no  interests  but  our  own — nay,  more,  that  we  have 
been  but  making  u  the  poor  poorer”  than  they  were — I 
know  very  well  that,  whether  I  can  unravel  his  fallacies 
or  not,  he  is  talking  the  most  arrant  nonsense,  and  must 
have  in  his  composition,  however  ingenious  and  however 
eloquent,  a  rich  combination,  and  a  very  large  percent¬ 
age  of  the  fanatic  and  of  the  goose. 

And  here,  again,  we  have  a  new  indication  of  these 
elements  in  one  great  assumption  of  fact,  and  that  is  the 
assumption  that  wealth  has  been  becoming  less  and  less 
diffused — “  the  rich  richer,  the  poor  poorer.”  It  did 
not  require  the  recent  elaborate  and  able  statistical 
examination  of  Mr.  Giffen  to  convince  me  that  this 
assumption  is  altogether  false.  It  is  impossible  for  any 
man  to  have  been  a  considerable  employer  of  labor  dur¬ 
ing  a  period  embracing  one  full  generation,  without  his 
seeing  and  feeling  abundant  evidence  that  all  classes  have 
partaken  in  the  progress  of  the  country,  and  no  class 
more  extensively  than  that  which  lives  by  labor.  He 
must  know  that  wages  have  more  than  doubled — some¬ 
times  a  great  deal  more — while  the  continuous  remission 
•if  taxes  has  tended  to  make,  and  has  actually  made  almost 


THE  PROPHET  OE  SAH  PRAHCISCO. 


37 


every  article  of  subsistence  a  great  deal  cheaper  than  it 
was  thirty  years  ago.  And  outside  the  province  of  mere 
muscular  labor,  among  all  the  classes  who  are  concerned 
in  the  work  of  distribution  or  of  manufacture,  I  have 
seen  around  me,  and  on  my  own  property,  the  enormous 
increase  of  those  whose  incomes  must  be  comfortable 
without  being  large.  The  houses  that  are  built  for  their 
weeks  of  rest  and  leisure,  the  furniture  with  which  these 
houses  are  provided,  the  gardens  and  shrubberies  which 
are  planted  for  the  ornament  of  them  ;  all  of  these  in¬ 
dications,  and  a  thousand  more,  tell  of  increasing  com¬ 
fort  far  more  widely  if  not  universally  diffused. 

And  if  personal  experience  enables  me  to  contradict 
absolutely  one  of  Mr.  George’s  assumptions,  official  ex¬ 
perience  enables  me  not  less  certainly  to  contradict 
another.  Personally  I  know  what  private  ownership  has 
done  for  one  country.  Officially  I  have  had  only  too 
good  cause  to  know  what  State  ownership  has  not  done 
for  another  country.  India  is  a  country  in  which, 
theoretically  at  least,  the  State  is  the  only  and  the  uni¬ 
versal  landowner,  and  over  a  large  part  of  it  the  State 
does  actually  take  to  itself  a  share  of  the  gross  produce 
which  fully  represents  ordinary  rent.  Yet  this  is  the 
very  country  in  which  the  poverty  of  the  masses  is  so 
abject  that  millions  live  only  from  hand  to  mouth,  and 
when  there  is  any — even  a  partial — failure  of  the  crops, 
thousands  and  hundreds  of  thousands  are  in  danger  of 
actual  starvation.  The  Indian  Government  is  not  cor¬ 
rupt— whatever  other  failings  it  may  have — and  the  rents 
of  a  vast  territory  can  be  far  more  safe  if  left  to  its  dis¬ 
posal  than  they  could  be  left  at  the  disposal  of  such 
popular  governments  as  those  which  Mr.  George  has 
denounced  on  the  American  Continent.  Yet  somehow 
the  functions  and  duties  which  in  more  civilized  coun- 


38 


PROPERTY  IN  LAND. 


tries  are  discharged  by  the  institution  of  private  owner* 
ship  in  land  are  not  as  adequately  discharged  by  the  Ind¬ 
ian  Administration.  Moreover,  I  could  not  fail  to 
observe,  when  I  was  connected  with  the  Government  of 
India,  that  the  portion  of  that  country  which  has  most 
grown  in  wealth  is  precisely  that  part  of  it  in  which  the 
Government  has  parted  with  its  power  of  absorbing  rent 
by  having  agreed  to  a  Permanent  Settlement.  Many 
Anglo-Indian  statesmen  have  looked  with  envious  eyes 
at  the  wealth  which  has  been  developed  in  Lower  Ben¬ 
gal,  and  have  mourned  over  the  policy  by  which  the 
State  has  been  withheld  from  taking  it  into  the  hands  of 
Government.  There  are  two  questions,  however,  which 
have  always  occurred  to  me  when  this  mourning  has  been 
expressed — the  first  is  whether  we  are  quite  sure  that 
the  wealth  of  Lower  Bengal  would  ever  have  arisen  if 
its  sources  had  not  been  thus  protected  ;  and  the  second 
is  whether  even  now  it  is  quite  certain  that  any  Govern¬ 
ments,  even  the  best,  spend  wealth  better  for  the  public 
interests  than  those  to  whom  it  belongs  by  the  natural 
processes  of  acquisition.  These  questions  have  never,  I 
think,  been  adequately  considered.  But  whatever  may 
be  the  true  answer  to  either  of  them,  there  is  at  least  one 
question  on  which  all  English  statesmen  have  been 
unanimous — and  that  is,  that  promises  once  given  by  the 
Government,  however  long  ago,  must  be  absolutely  kept. 
"When  landed  property  has  been  bought  and  sold  and  in¬ 
herited  in  Bengal  for  some  three  generations — since  1793 
— under  the  guarantee  of  the  Government  that  the  Rent 
Tax  upon  it  is  to  remain  at  a  fixed  amount,  no  public 
man,  so  far  as  I  know,  has  ever  suggested  that  the  pub¬ 
lic  faith  should  be  violated.  And  not  only  so,  but  there 
has  been  a  disposition  even  to  put  upon  the  engagement 
of  the  Government  an  overstrained  interpretation,  and  to 


THJE  PROPHET  OF  SAN  FRANCISCO. 


39 


claim  for  the  landowners  who  are  protected  tinder  it  an 
immunity  from  all  other  taxes  affecting  the  same  sources 
of  income.  As  Secretary  of  State  for  India  I  had  to 
deal  with  this  question  along  with  my  colleagues  in  the 
Indian  Council,  and  the  result  we  arrived  at  was 
embodied  in  a  despatch  which  laid  down  the  principles 
applicable  to  the  case  so  clearly  that  in  India  it  appears 
to  have  been  accepted  as  conclusive.  The  Land  Tax 
was  a  special  impost  upon  rent.  The  promise  was  that 
this  special  impost  should  never  be  increased  ;  or,  in  its 
own  words,  that  there  should  be  no  u  augmentation  of 
the  public  assessment  in  consequence  of  the  improve¬ 
ment  of  their  estates.”  It  was  not  a  promise  that  no 
other  taxes  should  ever  be  raised  affecting  the  same 
sources  of  income,  provided  such  taxes  were  not  special, 
but  affected  all  other  sources  of  income  equally.  On 
this  interpretation  the  growing  wealth  of  Bengal  accruing 
under  the  Permanent  Settlement  would  remain  accessible 
to  taxation  along  with  the  growing  wealth  derived  from 
all  other  kinds  of  property,  but  not  otherwise.  There 
was  to  be  no  confiscation  by  the  State  of  the  increased 
value  of  land,  any  more  than  of  the  increased  value  of 
other  kinds  of  property,  on  the  pretext  that  this  increase 
was  unearned.  On  the  other  hand,  the  State  did  not 
exempt  that  increased  value  from  any  taxation  which 
might  be  levied  also  and  equally  from  all  the  rest  of  the 
community.  In  this  way  we  reconciled  and  established 
two  great  principles  which  to  shortsighted  theorists  may 
seem  antagonistic.  One  of  these  principles  is  that  it  is 
the  interest  of  every  community  to  give  equal  and  abso¬ 
lute  security  to  every  one  of  its  members  in  his  pursuit 
of  wealth  ;  the  other  is  that  when  the  public  interests 
demand  a  public  revenue  all  forms  of  wealth  should  be 
equally  accessible  to  taxation. 


40 


PROPERTY  IK  LAKD. 


It  would  have  saved  us  all,  both  in  London  and  in 
Calcutta,  much  anxious  and  careful  reasoning  if  we  could 
only  have  persuaded  ourselves  that  the  Government  of 
1793  could  not  possibly  bind  the  Government  of  1870.  It 
would  have  given  us  a  still  wider  margin  if  we  had  been 
able  to  believe  that  no  faith  can  be  pledged  to  land- 
owners,  and  that  we  had  a  divine  right  to  seize  not  only 
all  the  wealth  of  the  Zemindars  of  Bengal,  but  also  all  the 
property  derived  from  the  same  source  which  had  grown 
up  since  1793,  and  has  now  become  distributed  and 
absorbed  among  a  great  number  of  intermediate  sharers, 
standing  between  the  actual  cultivator  and  the  represen¬ 
tatives  of  those  to  whom  the  promise  was  originally 
given.  But  one  doctrine  has  been  tenaciously  held  by 
the  “  stupid  English  people55  in  the  government  of  their 
Eastern  Empire,  and  that  is,  that  our  honor  is  the 
greatest  of  our  possessions,  and  that  absolute  trust  in 
that  honor  is  one  of  the  strongest  foundations  of  our 
power. 

In  this  paper  it  has  not  been  my  aim  to  argue.  A 
simple  record  and  exposure  of  a  few  of  the  results 
arrived  at  by  Mr.  Henry  George,  has  been  all  that  I  in¬ 
tended  to  accomplish.  To  see  what  are  the  practical 
consequences  of  any  train  of  reasoning  is  so  much 
gained.  And  there  are  cases  in  which  this  gain  is  every¬ 
thing.  In  mathematical  reasoning  the  “  reduction  to 
absurdity55  is  one  of  the  most  familiar  methods  of  dis¬ 
proof.  In  political  reasoning  the  “reduction  to 
iniquity55  ought  to  be  of  equal  value.  And  if  it  is  not 
found  to  be  so  with  all  minds,  this  is  because  of  a 
peculiarity  in  human  character  which  is  the  secret  of  all 
its  corruption,  and  of  the  most  dreadful  forms  in  which 
that  corruption  has  been  exhibited.  In  pursuing 
another  investigation  I  have  lately  had  occasion  to 


THE  PROPHET  OF  SAN  FRANCISCO. 


41 


observe  upon  the  contrast  which,  in  this  respect,  exists 
between  onr  moral  and  onr  purely  intellectual  faculties.* 
Our  Reason  is  so  constituted  in  respect  to  certain  funda¬ 
mental  truths  that  those  truths  are  intuitively  perceived, 
and  any  rejection  of  them  is  at  once  seen  to  be  absurd. 
But  in  the  far  higher  sphere  of  Morals  and  Religion,  it 
would  seem  that  we  have  no  equally  secure  moorings  to 
duty  and  to  truth.  There  is  no  consequence,  however 
hideous  or  cruel  its  application  may  be,  that  men  have 
been  prevented  from  accepting  because  of  such  hideous¬ 
ness  or  of  such  cruelty.  Nothing,  however  shocking,  is 
quite  sure  to  shock  them.  If  it  follows  from  some  false 
belief,  or  from  some  fallacious  verbal  proposition,  they 
will  entertain  it,  and  sometimes  will  even  rejoice  in  it 
with  a  savage  fanaticism.  It  is  a  fact  that  none  of  us 
should  ever  forget  that  the  moral  faculties  of  Man  do 
not  as  certainly  revolt  against  iniquity  as  his  reasoning 
faculties  do  revolt  against  absurdity.  All  history  is 
crowded  with  illustrations  of  this  distinction,  and  it  is 
the  only  explanation  of  a  thousand  horrors.  There  has 
seldom  been  such  a  curious  example  as  the  immoral 
teachings  of  Mr.  Henry  George.  Here  we  have  a  man 
who  probably  sincerely  thinks  he  is  a  Christian,  and  who 
sets  up  as  a  philosopher,  but  who  is  not  the  least  shocked 
by  consequences  which  abolish  the  Decalogue,  and  deny 
the  primary  obligations  both  of  public  and  of  private 
honor.  This  is  a  very  curious  phenomenon,  and  well 
deserving  of  some  closer  investigation.  What  are  the 
erroneous  data — what  are  the  abstract  propositions — ■ 
which  so  overpower  the  Moral  Sense,  and  coming  from 
the  sphere  of  Speculation  dictate  such  flagitious  recom¬ 
mendations  in  the  sphere  of  Conduct  ?  To  this  question 


*  “  Unity  of  Nature,”  chap.  x.  pp.  440-5, 


42 


PROPERTY  IK  LAKD. 


I  may  perhaps  return,  not  with  exclusive  reference  to 
the  writings  of  one  man,  but  with  reference  to  the  writ¬ 
ings  of  many  others  who  have  tried  to  reduce  to  scien¬ 
tific  form  the  laws  which  govern  the  social  developments 
of  our  race,  and  who  in  doing  so  have  forgotten — 
strangely  forgotten — some  of  the  most  fundamental  facts 
of  Nature. 


II. 


THE  “  REDUCTION  TO  INIQUITY.35 

BY  HENRY  GEORGE. 

“In  this  paper  it  has  not  been  my  aim  to  argue,53 
says  the  Duke  of  Argyll,  in  concluding  his  article 
entitled  u  The  Prophet  of  San  Francisco.55  It  is  gener¬ 
ally  waste  of  time  to  reply  to  those  who  do  not  argue. 
Yet,  partly  because  of  my  respect  for  other  writings  of 
his,  and  partly  because  of  the  ground  to  which  he  invites 
me,  I  take  the  first  opportunity  I  have  had  to  reply  to 
the  Duke. 

In  doing  so,  let  me  explain  the  personal  incident  to 
which  he  refers,  and  which  he  has  seemingly  misunder¬ 
stood.  In  sending  the  Duke  of  Argyll  a  copy  of  “  Prog¬ 
ress  and  Poverty,55  I  intended  no  impertinence,  and 
was  unconscious  of  any  impropriety.  Instead,  I  paid 
him  a  high  compliment.  For,  as  I  stated  in  an  accom¬ 
panying  note,  I  sent  him  my  book  not  only  to  mark  my 
esteem  for  the  author  of  “  The  Reign  of  Law,55  but  be¬ 
cause  I  thought  him  a  man  superior  to  his  accidents. 

I  am  still  conscious  of  the  profit  I  derived  from  “  The 
Reign  of  Law, 5  5  and  can  still  recall  the  pleasure  it  gave 
me.  What  attracted  me,  however,  was  not,  as  the  Duke 
seems  to  think,  what  he  styles  his  “  nonsense  chapter.55 
On  the  contrary,  the  notion  that  it  is  necessary  to  impose 
restrictions  upon  labor  seems  to  me  strangely  incon- 


44 


PROPERTY  IK  LAKD. 


gruous,  not  only  with  free  trade,  but  with  the  idea  of 
the  dominance  and  harmony  of  natural  laws,  which  in 
preceding  chapters  he  so  well  develops.  Where  such 
restrictions  as  Factory  Acts  seem  needed  in  the  interests 
of  labor,  the  seeming  need,  to  my  mind,  arises  from  pre¬ 
vious  restrictions,  in  the  removal  of  which,  and  not  in 
further  restrictions,  the  true  remedy  is  to  be  sought. 
What  attracted  me  in  “  The  Reign  of  Law”  was  the 
manner  in  which  the  Duke  points  out  the  existence  of 
physical  laws  and  adaptations  which  compel  the  mind 
that  thinks  upon  them  to  the  recognition  of  creative  pur¬ 
pose.  In  this  way  the  Duke’s  book  was  to  me  useful 
and  grateful,  as  I  doubt  not  it  has  been  to  many  others. 

My  book,  1  thought,  might,  in  return,  be  useful  and 
grateful  to  the  Duke — might  give  him  something  of  that 
“  immense  and  instinctive  pleasure”  of  which  he  had 
spoken  as  arising  from  the  recognition  of  the  grand  sim¬ 
plicity  and  unspeakable  harmony  of  universal  law.  And 
in  the  domain  in  which  1  had,  as  I  believed,  done  some¬ 
thing  to  point  out  the  reign  of  law  this  pleasure  is  per¬ 
haps  even  more  intense  than  in  that  of  which  he  had 
written.  For  in  physical  laws  we  recognize  only  intelli¬ 
gence,  and  can  but  trust  that  infinite  wisdom  implies  in¬ 
finite  goodness.  But  in  social  laws  he  who  looks  may 
recognize  beneficence  as  well  as  intelligence  ;  may  see 
that  the  moral  perceptions  of  men  are  perceptions  of 
realities  ;  and  find  ground  for  an  abiding  faith  that  this 
short  life  does  not  bound  the  destiny  of  the  human  soul. 
I  knew  the  Duke  of  Argyll  then  only  by  his  book.  I 
had  never  been  in  Scotland,  or  learned  the  character  as 
a  landlord  he  bears  there.  I  intended  to  pay  a  tribute 
and  give  a  pleasure  to  a  citizen  of  the  republic  of  letters, 
not  to  irritate  a  landowner.  I  did  not  think  a  trumpery 
title  and  a  patch  of  ground  could  fetter  a  mind  that  had 


THE  cc  REDUCTION  TO  INIQUITY.” 


45 


communed  with  Nature  and  busied  itself  with  causes  and 
beginnings.  My  mistake  was  that  of  ignorance.  Since 
the  Duke  of  Argyll  has  publicly  called  attention  to  it,  I 
thus  publicly  apologize. 

The  Duke  declares  it  has  not  been  his  aim  to  argue. 
This  is  clear.  1  wish  it  were  as  clear  it  had  not  been  his 
aim  to  misrepresent.  He  seems  to  have  written  for 
those  who  have  never  read  the  books  he  criticises.  But 
as  those  who  have  done  so  constitute  a  very  respectable 
part  of  the  reading  world,  I  can  leave  his  misrepresenta¬ 
tions  to  take  care  of  themselves,  confident  that  the  in¬ 
credible  absurdity  he  attributes  to  my  reasonings  will  be 
seen,  by  whoever  reads  my  books,  to  belong  really  to 
the  Duke’s  distortions.  In  what  I  have  here  to  say  I 
prefer  to  meet  him  upon  his  own  ground  and  to  hold  to 
the  main  question.  *  I  accept  the  reduction  to  iniquity. 

Strangely  enough,  the  Duke  expresses  distrust  of  the 
very  tribunal  to  which  he  appeals.  u  It  is  a  fact,”  he 
tells  us,  “  that  none  of  us  should  ever  forget,  that  the 
moral  faculties  do  not  as  certainly  revolt  against  iniquity 
as  the  reasoning  faculties  do  against  absurdity.”  If  that 
be  the  case,  why,  then,  may  I  ask,  is  the  Duke’s  whole 
article  addressed  to  the  moral  faculties  ?  Why  does  he 
talk  about  right  and  wrong,  about  justice  and  injustice, 
about  honor  and  dishonor  ;  about  my  “  immoral  doc¬ 
trines”  and  “  profligate  conclusions,”  “  the  unutterable 
meanness  of  the  gigantic  villainy”  I  advocate  ?  why  style 
me  “  such  a  Preacher  of  Unrighteousness  as  the  world 
has  never  seen,”  and  so  on  ?  If  the  Duke  will  permit 

*  It  is  unnecessary  for  me  to  say  anything  of  India  further  than  to 
remark  that  the  essence  of  nationalization  of  land  is  not  in  the  col¬ 
lection  of  rent  by  government,  but  in  its  utilization  for  the  benefit  of 
the  people.  Nor  on  the  subject  of  public  debts  is  it  worth  while  here 
to  add  anything  to  what  I  have  said  “Social  Problems.” 


46 


PROPERTY  IK  LAKD. 


me  1  will  tell  him,  for  in  all  probability  be  does  not  know 
— be  bimself ,  to  paraphrase  his  own  words,  being  a  good 
example  of  bow  men  who  sometimes  set  up  as  philoso¬ 
phers  and  deny  laws  of  the  human  mind  are  themselves 
unconsciously  subject  to  those  very  laws.  The  Duke 
appeals  to  moral  perceptions  for  the  same  reason  that 
impels  all  men,  good  or  bad,  learned  or  simple,  to  appeal 
to  moral  perceptions  whenever  they  become  warm  in 
argument  ;  and  this  reason  is,  the  instinctive  feeling  that 
the  moral  sense  is  higher  and  truer  than  the  intellectual 
sense  ;  that  the  moral  faculties  do  more  certainly  revolt 
against  iniquity  than  the  intellectual  faculties  against 
absurdity.  The  Duke  appeals  to  the  moral  sense,  be¬ 
cause  he  instinctively  feels  that  with  all  men  its  decisions 
have  the  highest  sanction  ;  and  if  he  afterward  seeks  to 
weaken  its  authority,  it  is  because  this  very  moral  sense 
whispers  to  him  that  his  case  is  not  a  good  one. 

My  opinion  as  to  the  relative  superiority  of  the  moral 
and  intellectual  perceptions  is  the  reverse  of  that  stated 
by  the  Duke.  It  seems  to  me  certain  that  the  moral 
faculties  constitute  a  truer  guide  than  the  intellectual 
faculties,  and  that  what,  in  reality,  we  should  never  for¬ 
get,  is  not  that  the  moral  faculties  are  untrustworthy, 
but  that  those  faculties  may  be  dulled  by  refusal  to  heed 
them,  and  distorted  by  the  promptings  of  selfishness. 
So  true,  so  ineradicable  is  the  moral  sense,  that  where 
selfishness  or  passion  would  outrage  it,  the  intellectual 
faculties  are  always  called  upon  to  supply  excusp.  No 
unjust  war  was  ever  begun  without  some  pretence  of 
asserting  right  or  redressing  wrong,  or,  despite  them¬ 
selves,  of  doing  some  good  to  the  conquered.  No  petty 
thief  but  makes  for  himself  some  justification.  It  is 
doubtful  if  any  deliberate  wrong  is  ever  committed,  it  is 
certain  no  wrongful  course  of  action  is  ever  continued, 


THE  “REDUCTION  TO  INIQUITY.”  4? 

without  the  framing  of  some  theory  which  may  dull  or 
placate  the  moral  sense. 

And  while  as  to  things  apprehended  solely  by  the  in¬ 
tellectual  faculties  the  greatest  diversities  of  perception 
have  obtained  and  still  obtain  among  men,  and  those 
perceptions  constantly  change  with  the  growth  of  knowl¬ 
edge,  there  is  a  striking  consensus  of  moral  perceptions. 
In  all  stages  of  social  development,  and  under  all  forms 
of  religion,  no  matter  how  distorted  by  selfish  motives 
and  intellectual  perversions,  truth,  justice,  and  benevo¬ 
lence  have  ever  been  esteemed,  and  all  our  intellectual 
progress  has  given  us  no  higher  moral  ideals  than  have 
obtained  among  primitive  peoples.  The  very  distortions 
of  the  moral  sense,  the  apparent  differences  in  the  moral 
standards  of  different  times  and  peoples,  do  but  show 
essential  unity.  Wherever  moral  perceptions  have 
differed  or  do  differ  the  disturbance  may  be  traced  to 
causes  which,  originating  in  selfishness  and  perpetuated 
by  intellectual  perversions,  have  distorted  or  dulled  the 
moral  faculty.  It  seems  to  me  that  the  Creator,  whom 
both  the  Duke  of  Argyll  and  myself  recognize  behind 
physical  and  mental  laws,  has  not  left  us  to  grope  our 
way  in  darkness,  but  has,  indeed,  given  us  a  light  by 
which  our  steps  may  be  safely  guided — a  compass  by 
which,  in  all  degrees  of  intellectual  development,  the 
way  to  the  highest  good  may  be  surely  traced.  But  just 
as  the  compass  by  which  the  mariner  steers  his  course 
over  the  trackless  sea  in  the  blackest  night,  may  be  dis¬ 
turbed  by  other  attractions,  may  be  misread  or  clogged, 
so  is  it  with  the  moral  sense.  This  evidently  is  not  a 
world  in  which  men  must  be  either  wise  or  good,  but  a 
world  in  which  they  may  bring  about  good  or  evil  as 
they  use  the  faculties  given  them. 

I  speak  of  this  because  the  recognition  of  the  supreim 


48 


PROPERTY  IK  LAKD. 


acy  and  certainty  of  the  moral  faculties  seems  to  me  to 
throw  light  upon  problems  otherwise  dark,  rather  than 
because  it  is  necessary  here,  since  I  admit  even  more 
unreservedly  than  the  Duke  the  competence  of  the 
tribunal  before  which  he  cites  me.  I  am  willing  to  sub¬ 
mit  every  question  of  political  economy  to  the  test  of 
ethics.  So  far  as  1  can  see  there  is  no  social  law”  which 
does  not  conform  to  moral  law,  and  no  social  question 
which  cannot  be  determined  more  quickly  and  certainly 
by  appeal  to  moral  perceptions  than  by  appeal  to  intel¬ 
lectual  perceptions.  Nor  can  there  be  any  dispute  be¬ 
tween  us  as  to  the  issue  to  be  joined.  He  charges  me 
with  advocating  violation  of  the  moral  law  in  proposing 
robbery.  1  agree  that  robbery  is  a  violation  of  the 
moral  law,  and  is  therefore,  without  further  inquiry,  to 
be  condemned. 

As  to  what  constitutes  robbery,  it  is,  we  will  both 
agree,  the  taking  or  withholding  from  another  of  that 
which  rightfully  belongs  to  him.  That  which  rightfully 
belongs  to  him,  be  it  observed,  not  that  which  legally 
belongs  to  him.  As  to  what  extent  human  law  may 
create  rights  is  beside  this  discussion,  for  what  I  propose 
is  to  change,  not  to  violate  human  law.  Such  change 
the  Duke  declares  would  be  unrighteous.  He  thus  ap¬ 
peals  to  that  moral  law  which  is  before  and  above  all 
human  laws,  and  by  which  all  human  laws  are  to  be 
judged.  Let  me  insist  upon  this  point.  Landholders 
must  elect  to  try  their  case  either  by  human  law  or  by 
moral  law.  If  they  say  that  land  is  rightfully  property 
because  made  so  by  human  law,  they  cannot  charge 
those  who  would  change  that  law  with  advocating  rob¬ 
bery.  But  if  they  charge  that  such  change  in  human 
law  would  be  robbery,  then  they  must  show  that  land  is 
rightfully  property  irrespective  of  human  law. 


49 


THE  “REDUCTION  TO  INIQUITY.” 

For  land  is  not  of  that  species  of  things  to  which  the 
presumption  of  rightful  property  attaches.  This  does 
attach  to  things  that  are  properly  termed  wealth,  and 
that  are  the  produce  of  labor.  Such  things,  in  their  be¬ 
ginning  must  have  an  owner,  as  they  originate  in  human 
exertion,  and  the  right  of  property  which  attaches  to 
them  springs  from  the  manifest  natural  right  of  every 
individual  to  himself  and  to  the  benefit  of  his  own  ex¬ 
ertions.  This  is  the  moral  basis  of  property,  which 
makes  certain  things  rightfully  property  totally  irre¬ 
spective  of  human  law.  The  Eighth  Commandment 
does  not  derive  its  validity  from  human  enactment.  It 
is  written  upon  the  facts  of  nature  and  self-evident  to 
the  perceptions  of  men.  If  there  were  but  two  men  in 
the  world,  the  fish  which  either  of  them  took  from  the 
sea,  the  beast  which  he  captured  in  the  chase,  the  fruit 
which  he  gathered,  or  the  hut  which  he  erected,  would 
be  his  rightful  property,  which  the  other  could  not  take 
from  him  without  violation  of  the  moral  law.  But  how 
could  either  of  them  claim  the  world  as  his  rightful 
property  ?  Or  if  they  agreed  to  divide  the  world  be¬ 
tween  them,  what  moral  right  could  their  compact  give 
as  against  the  next  man  who  came  into  the  world  ? 

It  is  needless,  however,  to  insist  that  property  in  land 
rests  only  on  human  enactment,  which  may,  at  any  time 
be  changed  without  violation  of  moral  law.  No  one 
seriously  asserts  any  other  derivation.  It  is  sometimes 
said  that  property  in  land  is  derived  from  appropriation. 
But  those  who  say  this  do  not  really  mean  it.  Appro¬ 
priation  can  give  no  right.  The  man  who  raises  a  cup¬ 
ful  of  water  from  a  river,  acquires  a  right  to  that  cupful, 
and  no  one  may  rightfully  snatch  it  from  his  hand  ;  but 
this  right  is  derived  from  labor,  not  from  appropriation. 
How  could  he  acquire  a  right  to  the  river,  by  merely 


50 


PROPERTY  IK  LAKE. 


appropriating  it  ?  Columbus  did  not  dream  of  appro¬ 
priating  the  New  "World  to  himself  and  his  heirs,  and 
would  have  been  deemed  a  lunatic  had  he  done  so. 
Nations  and  princes  divided  America  between  them,  but 
by  “  right  of  strength.’5  This,  and  this  alone,  it  is  that 
gives  any  validity  to  appropriation.  And  this,  evidently, 
is  what  they  really  mean  who  talk  of  the  right  given  by 
appropriation. 

This  “  right  of  conquest,”  this  power  of  the  strong, 
is  the  only  basis  of  property  in  land  to  which  the  Duke 
ventures  to  refer.  He  does  so  in  asking  whether  the 
exclusive  right  of  ownership  to  the  territory  of  Cali¬ 
fornia,  which,  according  to  him,  I  attribute  to  the  exist¬ 
ing  people  of  California,  does  not  rest  upon  conquest, 
and  “  if  so,  may  it  not  be  as  rightfully  acquired  by  any 
who  are  strong  enough  to  seize  it  ?”  To  this  1  reply  in 
the  affirmative.  If  exclusive  ownership  is  conferred  by 
conquest,  then,  not  merely,  as  the  Duke  says,  has  it 
“  been  open  to  every  conquering  army  and  every  oc¬ 
cupying  host  in  all  ages  and  in  all  countries  of  the  world 
to  establish  a  similar  ownership  but  it  is  now  open , 
and  whenever  the  masses  of  Scotland,  who  have  the 
power,  choose  to  take  from  the  Duke  the  estates  he  now 
holds,  he  cannot,  if  this  be  the  basis  of  his  claim,  con¬ 
sistently  complain. 

But  I  have  never  admitted  that  conquest  or  any  other 
exertion  of  force  can  give  right.  Nor  have  I  ever 
asserted,  but  on  the  contrary  have  expressly  denied,  that 
the  present  population  of  California,  or  any  other  coun¬ 
try,  have  any  exclusive  right  of  ownership  in  the  soil,  or 
can  in  any  way  acquire  such  a  right.  1  hold  that  the 
present,  the  past,  or  the  future  population  of  California, 
or  of  any  other  country,  have  not,  have  not  had,  and 
cannot  have,  any  right  save  to  the  use  of  the  soil,  and 


THE  “REDUCTION  TO  INIQUITY.” 


51 


that  as  to  this  their  rights  are  equal.  I  hold  with 
Thomas  Jefferson,  that  “  the  earth  belongs  in  usufruct 
to  the  living,  and  that  the  dead  have  no  power  or  right 
over  it.”  1  hold  that  the  land  was  not  created  for  one 
generation  to  dispose  of,  but  as  a  dwelling-place  for  all 
generations  ;  that  the  men  of  the  present  are  not  bound 
by  any  grants  of  land  the  men  of  the  past  may  have 
made,  and  cannot  grant  away  the  rights  of  the  men  of 
the  future.  I  hold  that  if  all  the  people  of  California, 
or  any  other  country,  were  to  unite  in  any  disposition  of 
the  land  which  ignored  the  equal  right  of  one  of  their 
number,  they  would  be  doing  a  wrong  ;  and  that  even 
if  they  could  grant  away  their  own  rights,  they  are 
powerless  to  impair  the  natural  rights  of  their  children. 
And  it  is  for  this  reason  that  I  hold  that  the  titles  to  the 
ownership  of  land  which  the  Government  of  the  United 
States  is  now  granting  are  of  no  greater  moral  validity 
than  the  land-titles  of  the  British  Isles,  which  rest  his¬ 
torically  upon  the  forcible  spoliation  of  the  masses. 

How  ownership  of  land  was  acquired  in  the  past  can 
have  no  bearing  upon  the  question  of  how  we  should 
treat  land  now  ;  yet  the  inquiry  is  interesting,  as  show¬ 
ing  the  nature  of  the  institution.  The  Duke  of  Argyll 
has  written  a  great  deal  about  the  rights  of  landowners, 
but  has  never,  I  think,  told  us  anything  of  the  historical 
derivation  of  these  rights.  He  has  spoken  of  his  own 
estates,  but  has  nowhere  told  us  how  they  came  to  be  his 
estates.  This,  I  know,  is  a  delicate  question,  and  on 
that  account  I  will  not  press  it.  But  while  a  man  ought 
not  to  be  taunted  with  the  sins  of  his  ancestors,  neither 
ought  he  to  profit  by  them.  And  the  general  fact  is, 
that  the  exclusive  ownership  of  land  has  everywhere  had 
its  beginnings  in  force  and  fraud,  in  selfish  greed  and 
anscrupulous  cunning.  It  originated,  as  all  evil  institu- 


52 


PROPERTY  IK  LAKE. 


tions  originate,  in  the  bad  passions  of  man,  not  in  their 
perceptions  of  what  is  right  or  their  experience  of  what 
is  wise.  u  Human  laws,”  the  Duke  tells  ns,  “  are 
evolved  ont  of  human  instincts,  and  in  direct  proportion 
as  the  accepted  ideas  on  which  they  rest  are  really 
universal,  in  that  same  proportion  have  they  a  claim  to 
be  regarded  as  really  natural,  and  as  the  legitimate  ex¬ 
pression  of  fundamental  truths.”  If  he  would  thus 
found  on  the  widespread  existence  of  exclusive  property 
in  land  an  argument  for  its  righteousness,  what,  may  I 
ask  him,  will  he  say  to  the  much  stronger  argument  that 
might  thus  be  made  for  the  righteousness  of  polygamy 
or  chattel  slavery  ?  But  it  is  a  fact,  of  which  I  need 
hardly  more  than  remind  him,  though  less  well-informed 
people  may  be  ignorant  of  it,  that  the  treatment  of  land 
as  individual  property  is  comparatively  recent,  and  by  at 
least  nine  hundred  and  ninety-nine  out  of  every  thousand 
of  those  who  have  lived  on  this  world,  has  never  been 
dreamed  of.  It  is  only  within  the  last  two  centuries 
that  it  has,  by  the  abolition  of  feudal  tenures,  and  the 
suppression  of  tribal  customs,  fully  obtained  among  our 
own  people.  In  fact,  even  among  us  it  has  hardly  yet 
reached  full  development.  For  not  only  are  we  still 
spreading  over  land  yet  unreduced  to  individual  owner¬ 
ship,  but  in  the  fragments  of  common  rights  which  yet 
remain  in  Great  Britain,  as  well  as  in  laws  and  customs, 
are  there  survivals  of  the  older  system.  The  first  and 
universal  perception  of  mankind  is  that  declared  by  the 
American  Indian  Chief,  Black  Hawk  :  u  The  Great  Spirit 
has  told  me  that  land  is  not  to  be  made  property  like 
other  property.  The  earth  is  our  mother  !”  And  this 
primitive  perception  of  the  right  of  all  men  to  the  use  of 
the  soil  from  which  all  must  live,  has  never  been  obscured 
save  by  a  long  course  of  usurpation  and  oppression. 


THE  “KEDUCTIOH  TO  INIQUITY.” 


53 


But  it  is  needless  for  me  to  discuss  such  questions  with 
the  Duke.  There  is  higher  ground  on  which  we  may 
meet.  He  believes  in  an  intelligent  Creator  ;  he  sees  in 
Nature  contrivance  and  intent  ;  he  realizes  that  it  is  only 
by  conforming  his  actions  to  universal  law  that  man  can 
master  his  conditions  and  fulfil  his  destiny. 

Let  me,  then,  ask  the  Duke  to  look  around  him  in  the 
richest  country  of  the  world,  where  art,  science,  and  the 
power  that  comes  from  the  utilization  of  physical  laws 
have  been  carried  to  the  highest  point  yet  attained,  and 
note  how  few  of  this  population  can  avail  themselves 
fully  of  the  advantages  of  civilization.  Among  the 
masses  the  struggle  for  existence  is  so  intense  that  the 
Duke  himself  declares  it  necessary  by  law  to  restrain 
parents  from  working  their  children  to  disease  and 
death  ! 

Let  him .  consider  the  conditions  of  life  involved  in 
such  facts  as  this — conditions,  alas,  obvious  on  every 
side,  and  then  ask  himself  whether  this  is  in  accordance 
with  the  intent  of  Nature  ? 

The  Duke  of  Argyll  has  explained  to  me  in  his 
“  Reign  of  Law”  with  what  nice  adaptations  the  feathers 
on  a  bird’s  wing  are  designed  to  give  it  the  power  of 
flight  :  he  has  told  me  that  the  claw  on  the  wing  of  a 
bat  is  intended  for  it  to  climb  by.  Will  he  let  me  ask 
him  to  look  in  the  same  way  at  the  human  beings  around 
him  ?  Consider,  O  Duke  !  the  little  children  growing 
up  in  city  slums,  toiling  in  mines,  working  in  noisome 
rooms  ;  the  young  girls  chained  to  machinery  all  day  or 
walking  the  streets  by  night  ;  the  women  bending  over 
forges  in  the  Black  Country  or  turned  into  beasts  of 
burden  in  the  Scottish  Highlands  ;  the  men  who  all  life 
long  must  spend  life’s  energies  in  the  effort  to  maintain 
life  !  Consider  them  as  you  have  considered  the  bat  and 


54 


PROPERTY  1^  LAKD. 


the  bird.  If  the  hook  of  the  bat  be  intended  to  climb 
by  and  the  wing  of  the  bird  be  intended  to  fly  by,  with 
what  intent  have  human  creatures  been  given  capabilities 
of  body  and  mind  which  under  conditions  that  exist  in 
such  countries  as  Great  Britain  only  a  few  of  them  can 
use  and  enjoy  ? 

They  who  see  in  Nature  no  evidences  of  conscious, 
planning  intelligence  may  think  that  all  this  is  as  it  must 
be  ;  but  who  that  recognizes  in  His  works  an  infinitely 
wise  Creator  can  for  a  moment  hesitate  to  infer  that  the 
wide  ditference  between  obvious  intent  and  actual  ac¬ 
complishment  is  due,  not  to  the  clash  of  natural  laws, 
but  to  our  ignoring  them  ?  Nor  need  we  go  far  to  con¬ 
firm  this  inference.  The  moment  we  consider  in  the 
largest  way  what  kind  of  an  animal  man  is,  we  see  in  the 
most  important  of  social  adjustments  a  violation  of 
Nature’s  intent  sufficient  to  account  for  want  and  misery 
and  aborted  development. 

Given  a  ship  sent  to  sea  with  abundant  provisions  for 
all  her  company.  What  must  happen  if  some  of  that 
company  take  possession  of  the  provisions  and  deny  to 
the  rest  any  share  ? 

Given  a  world  so  made  and  ordered  that  intelligent 
beings  placed  upon  it  may  draw  from  its  substance  an 
abundant  supply  for  all  physical  needs.  Must  there  not 
be  want  and  misery  in  such  a  world  if  some  of  those 
beings  make  its  surface  and  substance  their  exclusive 
property  and  deny  the  right  of  the  others  to  its  use  ? 
Here,  as  on  any  other  world  we  can  conceive  of,  two  and 
two  make  four,  and  when  all  is  taken  from  anything 
nothing  remains.  What  we  see  clearly  would  happen 
on  any  other  world,  does  happen  on  this. 

The  Duke  sees  intent  in  Nature.  So  do  I.  That 
which  conforms  to  this  intent  is  natural,  wise,  and 


THE  “  REDUCTION  TO  INIQUITY.” 


55 


/ighteous.  That  which  contravenes  it  is  unnatural, 
foolish,  and  iniquitous.  In  this  we  agree.  Let  us  then 
bring  to  this  test  the  institution  which  I  arraign  and  he 
defends. 

Place,  stripped  of  clothes,  a  landowner’s  baby  among 
a  dozen  workhouse  babies,  and  who  that  you  call  in  can 
tell  the  one  from  the  others  ?  Is  the  human  law  which 
declares  the  one  born  to  the  possession  of  a  hundred 
thousand  acres  of  land,  while  the  others  have  no  right  to 
a  single  square  inch,  conformable  to  the  intent  *of  Nature 
or  not  ?  Is  it,  judged  by  this  appeal,  natural  or  un¬ 
natural,  wise  or  foolish,  righteous  or  iniquitous  ?  Put 
the  bodies  of  a  duke  and  a  peasant  on  a  dissecting  table, 
and  bring,  if  you  can,  the  surgeon  who,  by  laying  bare 
the  brain  or  examining  the  viscera,  can  tell  which  is 
duke  and  which  is  peasant  ?  Are  not  both  land  animals 
of  the  same  kind,  with  like  organs  and  like  needs  ?  Is 
it  not  evidently  the  intent  of  Nature  that  both  shall  live 
on  land  and  use  land  in  the  same  way  and  to  the  same 
degree  ?  Is  there  not,  therefore,  a  violation  of  the  in¬ 
tent  of  Nature  in  human  laws  which  give  to  one  more 
land  than  he  can  possibly  use,  and  deny  any  land  to  the 
other  ? 

Let  me  ask  the  Duke  to  consider,  from  the  point  of 
view  of  an  observer  of  Nature,  a  landless  man — a  being 
fitted  in  all  his  parts  and  powers  for  the  use  of  land, 
compelled  by  all  his  needs  to  the  use  of  land,  and  yet 
denied  all  right  to  land.  Is  he  not  as  unnatural  as  a  bird 
without  air,  a  fish  without  water  ?  And  can  anything 
more  clearly  violate  the  intent  of  Nature  than  the 
human  laws  which  produce  such  anomalies  ? 

I  call  upon  the  Duke  to  observe  that  what  Nature 
teaches  us  is  not  merely  that  men  were  equally  intended 
to  live  on  land?  and  to  use  land,  and  therefore  had 


56 


PROPERTY  IK  LAND. 


originally  equal  rights  to  land,  but  that  they  are  now 
equally  intended  to  live  on  and  use  land,  and,  therefore, 
that  present  rights  to  land  are  equal.  It  is  said  that  fish 
deprived  of  light  will,  in  the  course  of  generations,  lose 
their  eyes,  and,  within  certain  narrow"  limits,  it  is  certain 
that  Nature  does  conform  some  of  her  living  creatures 
to  conditions  imposed  by  man.  In  such  cases  the  intent 
of  Nature  may  be  said  to  have  conformed  to  that  of 
man,  or  rather  to  embrace  that  of  man.  But  there  is  no 
such  conforming  in  this  case.  The  intent  of  Nature, 
that  all  human  beings  should  use  land,  is  as  clearly  seen 
in  the  children  born  to-day  as  it  could  have  been  seen  in 
any  past  generation.  How  foolish,  then,  are  those  who 
say  that  although  the  right  to  land  was  originally  equal, 
this  equality  of  right  has  been  lost  by  the  action  or 
sufferance  of  intermediate  generations.  How  illogical 
those  who  declare  that,  while  it  would  be  just  to  assert 
this  equality  of  right  in  the  laws  of  a  new  country  where 
people  are  now  coming  to  live,  it  would  be  unjust  to 
conform  to  it  the  laws  of  a  country  where  people  long 
have  lived  ?  Has  Nature  anywhere  or  in  anything 
shown  any  disposition  to  conform  to  what  we  call  vested 
interests  ?  Does  the  child  born  in  an  old  country  differ 
from  the  child  born  in  a  new  country  ? 

Moral  right  and  wrong,  the  Duke  must  agree  with 
me,  are  not  matters  of  precedent.  The  repetition  of  a 
wrong  may  dull  the  moral  sense,  but  will  not  make  it 
right.  A  robbery  is  no  less  a  robbery  the  thousand 
millionth  time  it  is  committed  than  it  was  the  first  time. 
This  they  forgot  who  declaring  the  slave  trade  piracy 
still  legalized  the  enslavement  of  those  already  enslaved. 
This  they  forget  who  admitting  the  equality  of  natural 
rights  to  the  soil  declare  that  it  would  be  unjust  now  to 
assert  them.  For,  as  the  keeping  of  a  man  in  slavery  is 


THE  cc  REDUCTION  TO  IHIQUITY. 


57 


as  much  a  violation  of  natural  right  as  the  seizure  of  his 
remote  ancestor,  so  is  the  robbery  involved  in  the 
present  denial  of  natural  rights  to  the  soil  as  much  a 
robbery  as  was  the  first  act  of  fraud  or  force  which 
violated  those  rights.  Those  who  say  it  would  be  unjust 
for  the  people  to  resume  their  natural  rights  in  the  land 
without  compensating  present  holders,  confound  right 
and  wrong  as  flagrantly  as  did  they  who  held  it  a 
crime  in  the  slave  to  run  away  without  first  paying  his 
owner  his  market  value.  They  have  never  formed  a 
clear  idea  of  what  property  in  land  means.  It  means 
not  merely  a  continuous  exclusion  of  some  people  from 
the  element  which  it  is  plainly  the  intent  of  Nature  that 
all  should  enjoy,  but  it  involves  a  continuous  confiscation 
of  labor  and  the  results  of  labor.  The  Duke  of  Argyll 
has,  we  say,  a  large  income  drawn  from  land.  But  is 
this  income  really  drawn  from  land  ?  Were  there  no 
men  on  his  land  what  income  could  the  Duke  get  from 
it,  save  such  as  his  own  hands  produced  ?  Precisely  as 
if  drawn  from  slaves,  this  income  represents  an  appro¬ 
priation  of  the  earnings  of  labor.  The  effect  of  permit¬ 
ting  the  Duke  to  treat  this  land  as  his  property,  is  to 
make  so  many  other  Scotsmen,  in  whole  or  in  part,  his 
serfs — to  compel  them  to  labor  for  him  without  pay,  or 
to  enable  him  to  take  from  them  their  earnings  without 
return.  Surely,  if  the  Duke  will  look  at  the  matter  in 
this  way,  he  must  see  that  the  iniquity  is  not  in  abolish¬ 
ing  an  institution  which  permits  one  man  to  plunder 
others,  but  in  continuing  it.  He  must  see  that  any  claim 
of  landowners  to  compensation  is  not  a  claim  to  payment 
for  what  they  have  previously  taken,  but  to  payment  for 
what  they  might  yet  take,  precisely  as  would  be  the  claim 
of  the  slaveholder — the  true  character  of  which  appears 
in  the  fact  that  he  would  demand  more  compensation  for 


58 


PROPERTY  IN  LAND. 


a  strong  slave,  out  of  whom  he  might  yet  get  much 
work,  than  for  a  decrepit  one,  out  of  whom  he  had 
already  forced  nearly  all  the  labor  he  could  yield. 

In  assuming  that  denial  of  the  justice  of  property  in 
land  is  the  prelude  to  an  attack  upon  all  rights  of  prop¬ 
erty,  the  Duke  ignores  the  essential  distinction  between 
land  and  things  rightfully  property.  The  things  which 
constitute  wealth,  or  capital  (which  is  wealth  used  in 
production),  and  to  which  the  right  of  property  justly 
attaches,  are  produced  by  human  exertion.  Their 
substance  is  matter,  which  existed  before  man,  and  which 
man  can  neither  create  nor  destroy  ;  but  their  essence — 
that  which  gives  them  the  character  of  wealth — is  labor 
impressed  upon  or  modifying  the  conditions  of  matter. 
Their  existence  is  due  to  the  physical  exertion  of  man, 
and,  like  his  physical  frame,  they  tend  constantly  to  re¬ 
turn  again  to  Nature’s  reservoirs  of  matter  and  force. 
Land,  on  the  contrary,  is  that  part  of  the  external  uni¬ 
verse  on  which  and  from  which  alone  man  can  live  ;  that 
reservoir  of  matter  and  force  on  which  he  must  draw  for 
all  his  needs.  Its  existence  is  not  due  to  man,  but  is 
referable  only  to  that  Power  from  which  man  himself 
proceeds.  It  continues  while  he  comes  and  goes,  and 
will  continue,  so  far  as  we  can  see,  after  he  and  his 
works  shall  disappear.  Both  species  of  things  have 
value,  but  the  value  of  the  one  species  depends  upon 
the  amount  of  labor  required  for  their  production  ;  the 
value  of  the  other  upon  the  power  which  its  reduction 
to  ownership  gives  of  commanding  labor  or  the  results  of 
labor  without  paying  any  equivalent.  The  recognition 
of  the  right  of  property  in  wealth,  or  things  produced 
by  labor,  is  thus  but  a  recognition  of  the  right  of  each 
human  being  to  himself  and  to  the  results  of  his  own  ex¬ 
ertions  ;  but  the  recognition  of  a  similar  right  of  prop* 


THE  (C  REDUCTION’  TO  INIQUITY. 


59 


erty  in  land  is  necessarily  the  impairment  and  denial  of 
this  true  right  of  property. 

Turn  from  principles  to  facts.  Whether  as  to  national 
strength  or  national  character,  whether  as  to  the  number 
of  people  or  as  to  their  physical  and  moral  health, 
whether  as  to  the  production  of  wealth  or  as  to  its  equi¬ 
table  distribution,  the  fruits  of  the  primary  injustice  in¬ 
volved  in  making  the  land,  on  which  and  from  which  a 
whole  people  must  live,  the  property  of  but  a  portion  of 
their  number,  are  everywhere  evil  and  nothing  but  evil. 

If  this  seems  to  any  too  strong  a  statement,  it  is  only 
because  they  associate  individual  ownership  of  land  with 
permanence  of  possession  and  security  of  improvements. 
These  are  necessary  to  the  proper  use  of  land,  but  so  far 
from  being  dependent  upon  individual  ownership  of 
land,  they  can  be  secured  without  it  in  greater  degree 
than  with  it.  This  will  be  evident  upon  reflection. 
That  the  existing  system  does  not  secure  permanence  of 
possession  and  security  of  improvements  in  anything  like 
the  degree  necessary  to  the  best  use  of  land,  is  obvious 
everywhere,  but  especially  obvious  in  Great  Britain, 
where  the  owners  of  land  and  the  users  of  land  are  for 
the  most  part  distinct  persons.  In  many  cases  the  users 
of  land  have  no  security  from  year  to  year,  a  logical 
development  of  individual  ownership  in  land  so  fla¬ 
grantly  unjust  to  the  user  and  so  manifestly  detrimental 
to  the  community,  that  in  Ireland,  where  this  system 
most  largely  prevailed,  it  has  been  deemed  necessary  for 
the  State  to  interfere  in  the  most  arbitrary  manner.  In 
other  cases,  where  land  is  let  for  years,  the  user  is  often 
hampered  with  restrictions  that  prevent  improvement 
and  interfere  with  use,  and  at  the  expiration  of  the  lease 
he  is  not  merely  deprived  of  his  improvements,  but  is 
frequently  subjected  to  a  blackmail  calculated  upon  the 


60 


PROPERTY  IN  LAND. 


inconvenience  and  loss  which  removal  wonld  cost  him. 
Wlierever  I  have  been  in  Great  Britain,  from  Land’s 
End  to  John  O’Groat’s,  and  from  Liverpool  to  Hull,  I 
have  heard  of  improvements  prevented  and  production 
curtailed  from  this  cause — in  instances  which  run  from 
the  prevention  of  the  building  of  an  outhouse,  the  paint¬ 
ing  of  a  dwelling,  the  enlargement  of  a  chapel,  the 
widening  of  a  street,  or  the  excavation  of  a  dock,  to  the 
shutting  up  of  a  mine,  the  demolition  of  a  village,  the 
tearing  up  of  a  railway  track,  or  the  turning  of  land  from 
the  support  of  men  to  the  breeding  of  wild  beasts.  I 
could  cite  case  after  case,  each  typical  of  a  class,  but  it  is 
unnecessary.  How  largely  use  and  improvement  are 
restricted  and  prevented  by  private  ownership  of  land 
may  be  appreciated  only  by  a  few,  but  specific  cases  are 
known  to  all.  How  insecurity  of  improvement  and 
possession  prevents  the  proper  maintenance  of  dwellings 
in  the  cities,  how  it  hampers  the  farmer,  how  it  fills  the 
shopkeeper  with  dread  as  the  expiration  of  his  lease 
draws  nigh,  have  been,  to  some  extent  at  least,  brought 
out  by  recent  discussions,  and  in  all  these  directions 
propositions  are  being  made  for  State  interference  more 
or  less  violent,  arbitrary,  and  destructive  of  the  sound 
principle  that  men  should  be  left  free  to  manage  their 
own  property  as  they  deem  best. 

Does  not  all  this  interference  and  demand  for  inter¬ 
ference  show  that  private  property  in  land  does  not  pro¬ 
duce  good  results,  that  it  does  not  give  the  necessary 
permanence  of  possession  and  security  of  improvements  ? 
Is  not  an  institution  that  needs  such  tinkering  funda¬ 
mentally  wrong  ?  That  property  in  land  must  have 
different  treatment  from  other  property,  all,  or  nearly 
all,  are  now  agreed.  Does  not  this  prove  that  land 
ought  not  to  be  made  individual  property  at  all  ;  that  to 


•THE  “REDUCTION  TO  IKIQITITY.” 


61 


treat  it  as  individual  property  is  to  weaken  and  endanger 
the  true  rights  of  property  ? 

The  Duke  of  Argyll  asserts  that  in  the  United  States 
we  have  made  land  private  property  because  we  have 
found  it  necessary  to  secure  settlement  and  improve¬ 
ment.  Nothing  could  be  further  from  the  truth.  The 
Duke  might  as  well  urge  that  our  protective  tariff  is  a 
proof  of  the  necessity  of  u  protection.”  We  have  made 
land  private  property  because  we  are  but  transplanted 
Europeans,  wedded  to  custom,  and  have  followed  it  in 
this  matter  more  readily,  because  in  a  new  country  the 
evils  that  at  length  spring  from  private  property  in  land 
are  less  obvious,  while  a  much  larger  portion  of  the  peo¬ 
ple  seemingly  profit  by  it — those  on  the  ground  gaining 
at  the  expense  of  those  who  come  afterward.  But  so 
far  from  this  treatment  of  land  in  the  United  States  hav¬ 
ing  promoted  settlement  and  reclamation,  the  very  re¬ 
verse  is  true.  What  it  has  promoted  is  the  scattering  of 
population  in  the  country  and  its  undue  concentration  in 
cities,  to  the  disadvantage  of  production  and  the  lessen¬ 
ing  of  comfort.  It  has  forced  into  the  wilderness 
families  for  whom  there  was  plenty  of  room  in  well- 
settled  neighborhoods,  and  raised  tenement  houses  amid 
vacant  lots,  led  to  waste  of  labor  and  capital  in  roads  and 
railways  not  really  needed,  locked  up  natural  opportuni¬ 
ties  that  otherwise  would  have  been  improved,  made 
tramps  and  idlers  of  men  who,  had  they  found  it  in 
time,  would  gladly  have  been  at  work,  and  given  to  our 
agriculture  a  character  that  is  rapidly  and  steadily 
decreasing  the  productiveness  of  the  soil. 

As  to  political  corruption  in  the  United  States,  of 
which  I  have  spoken  in  u  Social  Problems,”  and  to 
which  the  Duke  refers,  it  springs,  as  I  have  shown  in  that 
book,  not  from  excess  but  from  deficiency  of  democracy, 


62 


PROPERTY  IK  LAKD. 


and  mainly  from  onr  failure  to  recognize  the  equality  of 
natural  rights  as  well  as  of  political  rights.  In  compar¬ 
ing  the  two  countries,  it  may  be  well  to  note  that  the 
exposure  of  abuses  is  quicker  and  sharper  in  the  United 
States  than  in  England,  and  that  to  some  extent  abuses 
which  in  the  one  country  appear  in  naked  deformity,  are 
in  the  other  hidden  by  the  ivy  of  custom  and  respecta¬ 
bility.  But  be  this  as  it  may,  the  reforms  I  propose,  in¬ 
stead  of  adding  to  corruptive  forces,  would  destroy  pro¬ 
lific  sources  of  corruption.  Our  “  protective”  tariff,  our 
excise  taxes,  and  demoralizing  system  of  local  taxation, 
would,  in  their  direct  and  indirect  effects,  corrupt  any 
government,  even  if  not  aided  by  the  corrupting  effects 
of  the  grabbing  for  public  lands.  But  the  first  step  I 
propose  would  sweep  away  these  corruptive  influences, 
and  it  is  to  governments  thus  reformed,  in  a  state  of 
society  in  which  the  reckless  struggle  for  wealth  would 
be  lessened  by  the  elimination  of  the  fear  of  want,  that 
I  would  give,  not  the  management  of  land  or  the  direc¬ 
tion  of  enterprise,  but  the  administration  of  the  funds 
arising  from  the  appropriation  cf  economic  rent. 

The  Duke  styles  me  a  Pessimist.  But,  however 
pessimistic  I  may  be  as  to  present  social  tendencies,  I 
have  a  firm  faith  in  human  nature.  I  am  convinced  that 
the  attainment  of  pure  government  is  merely  a  matter  of 
conforming  social  institutions  to  moral  law.  If  we  do 
this,  there  is,  to  my  mind,  no  reason  why  in  the  proper 
sphere  of  public  administration  we  should  not  find  men 
as  honest  and  as  faithful  as  when  acting  in  private 
capacities. 

But  to  return  to  the  reduction  to  iniquity.  Test  the 
institution  of  private  property  in  land  by  its  fruits  in  any 
country  where  it  exists.  Take  Scotland.  What,  there, 
are  its  results  ?  That  wild  beasts  have  supplanted  human 


THE  u  REDUCTION  TO  INIQUITY.**  63 

beings  :  that  glens  which  once  sent  forth  their  thousand 
fighting  men  are  now  tenanted  by  a  conple  of  game- 
keepers  ;  that  there  is  destitution  and  degradation  that 
would  shame  savages  ;  that  little  children  are  stunted  and 
starved  for  want  of  proper  nourishment  ;  that  women 
are  compelled  to  do  the  work  of  animals  ;  that  young 
girls  who  ought  to  be  fitting  themselves  for  wifehood 
and  motherhood  are  held  to  the  monotonous  toil  of 
factories,  while  others,  whose  fate  is  sadder  still,  prowl 
the  streets  ;  that  while  a  few  Scotsmen  have  castles  and 
palaces,  more  than  a  third  of  Scottish  families  live  in 
one  room  each,  and  more  than  two  thirds  in  not  more 
than  two  rooms  each  ;  that  thousands  of  acres  are  kept 
as  playgrounds  for  strangers,  while  the  masses  have  not 
enough  of  their  native  soil  to  grow  a  flower,  are  shut  out 
even  from  moor  and  mountain  ;  dare  not  take  a  trout 
from  a  loch  or  a  salmon  from  the  sea  ! 

If  the  Duke  thinks  all  classes  have  gained  by  the 
advance  in  civilization,  let  him  go  into  the  huts  of  the 
Highlands.  There  he  may  find  countrymen  of  his,  men 
and  women  the  equals  in  natural  ability  and  in  moral 
character  of  any  peer  or  peeress  in  the  land,  to  whom 
the  advance  of  our  wondrous  age  has  brought  no  gain, 
lie  may  find  them  tilling  the  ground  with  the  crockit 
spade,  cutting  grain  with  the  sickle,  threshing  it  with 
/lie  flail,  winnowing  it  by  tossing  it  in  the  air,  grinding 
h  as  their  forefathers  did  a  thousand  years  ago.  He  may 
see  spinning-wheel  and  distaff  yet  in  use,  and  the  smoke 
from  the  fire  in  the  centre  of  the  hut  ascending  as  it  can 
tnrougli  the  thatch,  that  the  precious  heat,  which  costs 
so  much  labor  to  procure,  may  be  economized  to  the 
utmost.  These  human  beings  are  in  natural  parts  and 
powers  just  such  human  beings  as  may  be  met  at  a  royal 
levee,  at  a  gathering  of  scientists,  or  inventors,  or  cap- 


64 


PROPERTY  IK  LAKD. 


tains  of  industry.  That  they  so  live  and  so  work,  is  not 
because  of  their  stupidity,  but  because  of  their  poverty — * 
the  direct  and  indisputable  result  of  the  denial  of  theii 
natural  rights.  They  have  not  merely  been  prevented 
from  participating  in  the  “  general  advance,”  but  are 
positively  worse  off  than  were  their  ancestors  before 
commerce  had  penetrated  the  Highlands  or  the  modern 
era  of  labor-saving  inventions  had  begun.  They  have 
been  driven  from  the  good  land  to  the  poor  land.  While 
their  rents  have  been  increased,  their  holdings  have  been 
diminished,  and  their  pasturage  cut  off.  Where  they 
once  had  beasts,  they  cannot  now  eat  a  chicken  or  keep  a 
donkey,  and  their  women  must  do  work  once  done  by 
animals.  With  the  same  thoughtful  attention  he  has 
given  to  “  the  way  of  an  eagle  in  the  air,”  let  the  Duke 
consider  a  sight  he  must  have  seen  many  times — a  Scot¬ 
tish  woman  toiling  uphill  with  a  load  of  manure  on  her 
back.  Then  let  him  apply  “  the  reduction  to  iniquity.” 

Let  the  Duke  not  be  content  with  feasting  his  eyes 
upon  those  comfortable  houses  of  the  large  farmers 
which  so  excite  his  admiration.  Let  him  visit  the 
bothies  in  which  farm  servants  are  herded  together  like 
cattle,  and  learn,  as  he  may  learn,  that  the  lot  of  the 
Scottish  farm  servant — a  lot  from  which  no  industrv  or 
thrift  can  release  him — is  to  die  in  the  workhouse  or  in 
the  receipt  of  a  parish  dole  if  he  be  so  unfortunate  as  to 
outlive  his  ability  to  work.  Or  let  him  visit  those  poor 
broken-down  creatures  who,  enduring  everything  rather 
than  accept  the  humiliation  of  the  workhouse,  are  eking 
out  their  last  days  upon  a  few  shillings  from  the  parish, 
supplemented  by  the  charity  of  people  nearly  as  poor  as 
themselves.  Let  him  consider  them,  and  if  he  has 
imagination  enough,  put  himself  in  their  place.  Then 
let  him  try  “  the  reduction  to  iniquity.” 


THE  u  REDUCTION  TO  IXIQUITY.  ” 


65 


Let  the  Duke  go  to  Glasgow,  the  metropolis  of  Scot¬ 
land,  where,  in  underground  cellars  and  miserable  rooms, 
he  will  find  crowded  together  families  who  (some  of 
them,  lest  they  might  offend  the  deer)  have  been  driven 
from  their  native  soil  into  the  great  city  to  compete 
with  each  other  for  employment  at  any  price,  to  have 
their  children  debauched  by  daily  contact  with  all  that 
is  vile.  Let  him  some  Saturday  evening  leave  the  dis¬ 
tricts  where  the  richer  classes  live,  wander  for  awhile 
through  the  streets  tenanted  by  working  people,  and 
note  the  stunted  forms,  the  pinched  features.  Yice, 
drunkenness,  the  recklessness  that  comes  when  hope 
goes,  he  will  see  too.  How  should  not  such  conditions 
produce  such  effects  ?  But  he  will  also  see,  if  he  chooses 
to  look,  hard,  brave,  stubborn  struggling — the  work¬ 
man,  who,  do  his  best,  cannot  find  steady  employment  ; 
the  bread-winner  stricken  with  illness  ;  the  widow 
straining  to  keep  her  children  from  the  workhouse.  Let 
the  Duke  observe  and  reflect  upon  these  things,  and  then 
apply  the  reduction  to  iniquity. 

Or,  let  him  go  to  Edinburgh,  the  u  modern  Athens,” 
of  which  Scotsmen  speak  with  pride,  and  in  buildings 
from  whose  roofs  a  bowman  might  strike  the  spires  of 
twenty  churches,  he  will  find  human  beings  living  as  he 
would  not  keep  his  meanest  dog.  Let  him  toil  up  the 
stairs  of  one  of  those  monstrous  buildings,  let  him  enter 
one  of  those  “  dark  houses,”  let  him  close  the  door,  and 
in  the  blackness  think  what  life  must  be  in  such  a  place. 
Then  let  him  try  the  reduction  to  iniquity.  And  if  he 
go  to  that  good  charity  (but,  alas,  how  futile  is  Charity 
without  Justice  !)  where  little  children  are  kept  while 
their  mothers  are  at  work,  and  children  are  fed  who 
would  otherwise  go  hungry,  he  may  see  infants  whose 
limbs  are  shrunken  from  want  of  nourishment.  Per- 


PROPERTY  IK  LAKD. 


66 

haps  they  may  tell  him,  as  they  told  me,  of  that  little 
girl,  barefooted,  ragged,  and  hungry,  who,-  when  they 
gave  her  bread,  raised  her  eyes  and  clasped  her  hands, 
and  thanked  our  Father  in  Heaven  for  His  bounty  to 
her.  They  who  told  me  that  never  dreamed,  I  think,  ot 
its  terrible  meaning.  But  I  ask  the  Duke  of  Argyll, 
did  that  little  child,  thankful  for  that  poor  dole,  get 
what  our  Father  provided  for  her  ?  Is  He  so  niggard  \ 
If  not,  what  is  it,  who  is  it,  that  stands  between  such 
children  and  our  Father’s  bounty  ?  If  it  be  an  institu¬ 
tion,  is  it  not  our  duty  to  God  and  to  our  neighbor  to 
rest  not  till  we  destroy  it  ?  If  it  be  a  man,  were  it  not 
better  for  him  that  a  millstone  were  hanged  about  his 
neck  and  he  were  cast  into  the  depths  of  the  sea  ? 

There  can  be  no  question  of  over-population — no  pre¬ 
tence  that  N  ature  has  brought  more  men  into  being  than 
she  has  made  provision  for.  Scotland  surely  is  not 
over-populated.  Much  land  is  unusued  ;  much  land  is 
devoted  to  lower  uses,  such  as  the  breeding  of  game  and 
the  raising  of  cattle,  that  might  be  devoted  to  higher 
uses  ;  there  are  mineral  resources  untouched  ;  the  wealth 
drawn  from  the  sea  is  but  a  small  part  of  what  might  be 
drawn.  But  it  is  idle  to  argue  this  point.  Neither  in 
Scotland,  nor  in  any  other  country,  can  any  excess  of 
population  over  the  power  of  nature  to  provide  for  them 
be  shown.  The  poverty  so  painful  in  Scotland  is  mani¬ 
festly  no  more  due  to  over-population  than  the  crowding 
of  two  thirds  of  the  families  into  houses  of  one  or  two 
rooms  is  due  to  want  of  space  to  build  houses  upon. 
And  just  as  the  crowding  of  people  into  insufficient  lodg¬ 
ings  is  directly  due  to  institutions  which  permit  men  to 
hold  vacant  land  needed  for  buildings  until  they  can 
force  a  monopoly  price  from  those  wishing  to  build,  so  is 
the  poverty  of  the  masses  due  to  the  fact  that  they  are 


G7 


THE  Ci  REDUCTION  TO  INIQUITY. 

in  like  manner  shut  out  from  the  opportunities  Nature 
lias  provided  for  the  employment  of  their  labor  in  the 
satisfaction  of  their  wants. 

Take  the  Island  of  Skye  as  illustrating  on  a  small  scale 
the  cause  of  poverty  throughout  Scotland.  The  people 
of  Skye  are  poor — very  poor.  Is  it  because  there  are 
too  many  of  them  ?  An  explanation  lies  nearer — an  ex¬ 
planation  which  would  account  for  poverty  no  matter 
how  small  the  population.  If  there  were  but  one  man 
in  Skye,  and  if  all  that  he  produced,  save  enough  to  give 
him  a  bare  living,  were  periodically  taken  from  him  and 
carried  off,  he  would  necessarily  be  poor.  That  is  the 
condition  of  the  people  of  Skye.  With  a  population  of 
some  seventeen  thousand  there  are,  if  my  memory  serves 
me,  twenty-four  landowners.  The  few  proprietors  who 
live  upon  the  island,  though  they  do  nothing  to  produce 
wealth,  have  fine  houses,  and  live  luxuriously,  while  the 
greater  portion  of  the  rents  are  carried  off  to  be  spent 
abroad.  It  is  not  merely  that  there  is  thus  a  constant 
drain  upon  the  wealth  produced  ;  but  that  the  power  of 
producing  wealth  is  enormously  lessened.  As  the  people 
are  deprived  of  the  power  to  accumulate  capital,  produc¬ 
tion  is  carried  on  in  the  most  primitive  style,  and  at  the 
greatest  disadvantage. 

If  there  are  really  too  many  people  in  Scotland,  why 
not  have  the  landlords  emigrate  ?  They  are  not  merely 
best  fitted  to  emigrate,  but  would  give  the  greatest 
relief.  They  consume  most,  waste  most,  carry  off  most, 
while  they  produce  least.  As  landlords,  in  fact,  they 
produce  nothing.  They  merely  consume  and  destroy. 
Economically  considered,  they  have  the  same  effect  upon 
production  as  bands  of  robbers  or  pirate  fleets.  To 
national  wealth  they  are  as  weavils  in  the  grain,  as  rats 
in  the  storehouse,  as  ferrets  in  the  poultry  yard. 


68 


PROPERTY  IK  LAKD. 


The  Duke  of  Argyll  complains  of  what  he  calls  my 
“  assumption  that  owners  of  land  are  not  producers,  and 
that  rent  does  not  represent,  or  represents  in  a  very 
minor  degree,  the  interest  of  capital.”  The  Duke  will 
justify  his  complaint  if  he  will  show  how  the  owning  of 
land  can  produce  anything.  Failing  in  this,  he  must 
admit  that  though  the  same  person  may  be  a  laborer, 
capitalist,  and  landowner,  the  owner  of  land,  as  an 
owner  of  land,  is  not  a  producer.  And  surely  he  knows 
that  the  term  “  rent”  as  used  in  political  economy,  and 
as  I  use  it  in  the  books  he  criticises,  never  represents  the 
interest  on  capital,  but  refers  alone  to  the  sum  paid  for 
the  use  of  the  inherent  capabilities  of  the  soil. 

As  illustrating  the  usefulness  of  landlords,  the  Duke 
says  : 

“  My  own  experience  now  extends  over  the  best  part  of  forty  years. 
During  that  time  I  have  built  over  fifty  homesteads,  complete  for 
man  and  beast.  I  have  drained  and  reclaimed  many  hundreds,  and 
enclosed  some  thousands  of  acres.  In  this  sense  I  have  added  house 
to  house,  and  field  to  field,  not — as  pulpit  orators  have  assumed  in 
similar  cases — that  I  might  dwell  alone  in  the  land,  but  that  the 
cultivating  class  may  live  more  comfortably  and  with  better  appli¬ 
ances  for  increasing  the  produce  of  the  soil.” 

And  again  he  says  that  during  the  last  four  years  he 
has  spent  on  one  property  £40,000  in  the  improvement 
of  the  soil. 

I  fear  that  in  Scotland  the  Duke  of  Argyll  has  been 
“  hiding  his  light  under  a  bushel,”  for  his  version  of  the 
way  in  which  he  has  “  added  house  to  house,  and  field 
to  field”  differs  much  from  that  which  common  Scots¬ 
men  give.  But  this  is  a  matter  into  which  I  do  not  wish 
to  enter.  What  1  would  like  to  ask  the  Duke  is,  how 
he  built  the  fifty  homesteads  and  reclaimed  the  thou¬ 
sands  of  acres?  Not  with  his  own  hands,  of  course; 


THE  “REDUCTION  TO  INIQUITY.” 


69 


but  with  his  money.  Where,  then,  did  he  get  that 
money  ?  Was  is  not  taken  as  rent  from  the  cultivators 
of  the  soil  ?  And  might  not  they,  had  it  been  left  to 
them,  have  devoted  it  to  the  building  of  homesteads  and 
the  improvement  of  the  soil  as  well  as  he  ?  Suppose  the 
Duke  spends  on  such  improvements  all  he  draws  in  rent, 
minus  what  it  costs  him  to  live,  is  not  the  cost  of  his 
living  so  much  waste  so  far  as  the  improvement  of  the 
land  is  concerned  ?  Would  there  not  be  a  considerably 
greater  fund  to  devote  to  this  purpose  if  the  Duke  got 
no  rent,  and  had  to  work  for  a  living  ? 

But  all  Scottish  landholders  are  not  even  such  im¬ 
provers  as  the  Duke.  There  are  landlords  who  spend 
their  incomes  in  racing,  in  profligacy,  in  doing  things 
which  when  not  injurious  are  quite  as  useless  to  man  or 
beast,  as  the  works  of  that  English  Duke,  recently  dead, 
who  spent  millions  in  burrowing  underground  like  a 
mole.  What  the  Scottish  landlords  call  their  “  improve¬ 
ments”  have,  for  the  most  part,  consisted  in  building 
castles,  laying  out  pleasure  grounds,  raising  rents,  and 
evicting  their  kinsmen.  But  the  encouragement  given 
to  agriculture,  by  even  such  improving  owners  as  the 
Duke  of  Argyll,  is  very  much  like  the  encouragement 
given  to  traffic  by  the  Duke  of  Bedford,  who  keeps  two 
or  three  old  men  and  women  to  open  and  shut  gates  he 
has  erected  across  the  streets  of  London.  That  much 
the  greater  part  of  the  incomes  drawn  by  landlords  is  as 
completely  lost  for  all  productive  purposes  as  though  it 
were  thrown  into  the  sea,  there  can  be  no  doubt.  But 
that  even  the  small  part  which  is  devoted  to  reproduc¬ 
tive  improvement  is  largely  wasted,  the  Duke  of  Argyll 
himself  clearly  shows  in  stating,  what  I  have  learned 
from  other  sources,  that  the  large  outlays  of  the  great 
landholders  yield  little  interest,  and  in  many  cases  no  in- 


70 


PROPERTY  IK  LAKD. 


terest  at  all.  Clearly,  the  stock  of  wealth  would  have 
been  much  greater  had  this  capital  been  left  in  the  hands 
of  the  cultivators,  who,  in  most  cases,  suffer  from  lack 
of  capital,  and  in  many  cases  have  to  pay  the  most 
usurious  interest. 

In  fact,  the  plea  of  the  landlords  that  they,  as  land¬ 
lords,  assist  in  production,  is  very  much  like  the  plea  of 
the  slaveholders  that  they  gave  a  living  to  the  slaves. 
And  I  am  convinced  that  if  the  Duke  of  Argyll  will 
consider  the  matter  as  a  philosopher  rather  than  as  a 
landlord,  he  will  see  the  gross  inconsistency  between  the 
views  he  expresses  as  to  negro  slavery  and  the  position 
he  assumes  as  to  property  in  land. 

In  principle  the  two  systems  of  appropriating  the 
labor  of  other  men  are  essentially  the  same.  Since  it  is 
from  land  and  on  land  that  man  must  live,  if  he  is  to 
live  at  all,  a  human  being  is  as  completely  enslaved  when 
the  land  on  which  he  must  live  is  made  the  property  of 
another  as  when  his  own  flesh  and  blood  are  made  the 
property  of  that  other.  And  at  least,  after  a  certain 
point  in  social  development  is  reached,  the  slavery  that 
results  from  depriving  men  of  all  legal  right  to  land  is, 
for  the  very  reason  that  the  relation  between  master  and 
slave  is  not  so  direct  and  obvious,  more  cruel  and  more 
demoralizing  than  that  which  makes  property  of  their 
bodies. 

And  turning  to  facts,  the  Duke  must  see,  if  he  will 
look,  that  the  effects  of  the  two  systems  are  substantially 
the  same.  He  is,  for  instance,  an  hereditary  legislator, 
with  powder  in  making  laws  which  other  Scotsmen,  who 
have  little  or  no  voice  in  making  laws,  must  obey  under 
penalty  of  being  fined,  imprisoned,  or  hanged.  He  has 
this  power,  which  is  essentially  that  of  the  master  to 
compel  the  slave,  not  because  any  one  thinks  that  Hature 


THE  “REDUCTION"  TO  INIQUITY.’* 


71 


gives  wisdom  and  patriotism  to  eldest  sons  more  than  to 
younger  sons,  or  to  some  families  more  than  to  other 
families,  but  because  as  the  legal  owner  of  a  considerable 
part  of  Scotland,  he  is  deemed  to  have  greater  rights  in 
making  laws  than  other  Scotsmen,  who  can  live  in  their 
native  land  only  by  paying  some  of  the  legal  owners  of 
Scotland  for  the  privilege. 

That  power  over  men  arises  from  ownership  of  land  as 
well  as  from  ownership  of  their  bodies  the  Duke  may 
see  in  varied  manifestations  if  he  will  look.  The  power 
of  the  Scottish  landlords  over  even  the  large  farmers, 
and,  in  the  smaller  towns,  over  even  the  well-to-do  shop¬ 
keepers  and  professional  men,  is  enormous.  Even  where 
it  is  the  custom  to  let  on  lease,  and  large  capital  is  re¬ 
quired,  competition,  aided  in  many  cases  by  the  law  of 
hypotheca,  enable  the  landlord  to  exert  a  direct  power 
over  even  the  large  farmer.  That  many  substantial 
farmers  have  been  driven  from  their  homes  and  ruined 
because  they  voted  or  were  supposed  to  have  voted 
against  the  wishes  of  their  landlords  is  well  known.  A 
man  whose  reputation  was  that  of  the  best  farmer  in 
Scotland  was  driven  from  his  home  in  this  way  a  few 
years  since  for  having  politically  offended  his  landlord. 
In  Leeds  (England)  I  was  told  of  a  Scottish  physician 
who  died  there  lately.  He  had  been  in  comfortable 
practice  in  a  village  on  the  estate  of  a  Scottish  duke. 
Because  he  voted  for  a  Liberal  candidate,  word  was 
given  by  the  landlord’s  agent  that  he  was  no  longer  to 
be  employed,  and  as  the  people  feared  to  disobey  the 
hint,  he  was  obliged  to  leave.  He  came  to  Leeds,  and 
not  succeeding  in  establishing  himself,  pined  away,  and 
would  have  died  in  utter  destitution  but  that  some 
friends  he  had  made  in  Leeds  wrote  to  the  candidate  for 
supporting  whom  he  had  been  boycotted;  who  came  to 


72 


PROPERTY  IN  LAND. 


Leeds,  provided  for  liis  few  days  of  life,  and  assumed 
the  care  of  his  children.  I  mention  to  his  honor  the 
name  of  that  gentleman  as  it  was  given  to  me.  It  was 
Sir  Sydney  Waterlew. 

Daring  a  recent  visit  to  the  Highlands  I  was  over 
and  over  again  told  by  well-to-do  men  that  they  did  not 
dare  to  let  their  opinions  be  known  or  to  take  any  action 
the  landlords  or  their  agents  might  dislike.  In  one  town 
such  men  came  to  me  by  night  and  asked  me  to  speak, 
but  telling  me  frankly  that  they  did  not  dare  to  apply  for 
a  hall,  requested  me  to  do  that  for  myself,  as  I  was  be¬ 
yond  the  tyranny  they  feared.  If  this  be  the  condition 
of  the  well-to-do,  the  condition  of  the  crofters  can  be 
imagined.  One  of  them  said  to  me,  66  We  have  feared 
the  landlord  more  than  we  have  feared  God  Almighty  ; 
we  have  feared  the  factor  more  than  the  landlord,  and 
the  ground  officer  more  than  the  factor.”  But  there  is 
a  class  lower  still  even  than  the  crofters — the  cotters — 
who,  on  forty-eight  hours’  notice,  can  be  turned  out  of 
what  by  courtesy  are  called  their  homes,  and  who  are  at 
the  mercy  of  the  large  farmers  or  tacksmen,  who  in 
turn  fear  the  landlord  or  agent.  Take  this  class,  or  the 
class  of  farm  servants  who  are  kept  in  bothies.  Can  the 
Duke  tell  me  of  any  American  slaves  who  were  lodged 
and  fed  as  these  white  slaves  are  lodged  and  fed,  or  who 
had  less  of  all  the  comforts  and  enjoyments  of  life  ? 

The  slaveholders  of  the  South  never,  in  any  case  that 
I  have  heard  of,  interfered  with  the  religion  of  the 
slaves,  and  the  Duke  of  Argyll  will  doubtless  admit  that 
this  is  a  power  which  one  man  ought  not  to  have  over 
another.  Yet  he  must  know  that  at  the  disruption  of 
the  Scottish  Church,  some  forty  years  ago,  Scottish  pro¬ 
prietors  not  merely  evicted  tenants  who  joined  the  Free 
Church  (and  in  many  cases  eviction  meant  ruin  and 


THE  cc  REDUCTION  TO  INIQUITY. ” 


73 


death),  but  absolutely  refused  sites  for  churches  and  even 
permission  for  the  people  to  stand  upon  the  land  and 
worship  God  according  to  the  dictates  of  their  con¬ 
science.  Hugh  Miller  has  told,  in  u  The  Cruise  of  the 
Betsy,55  how  one  minister,  denied  permission  to  live  on 
the  land,  had  to  make  his  home  on  the  sea  in  a  small 
boat.  Large  congregations  had  to  worship  on  mountain 
roadsides  without  shelter  from  storm  and  sleet,  and  even 
on  the  seashore,  where  the  tide  flowed  around  their  knees 
as  they  took  the  communion.  But  perhaps  the  slavish¬ 
ness  which  has  been  engendered  in  Scotland  by  land 
monopoly  is  not  better  illustrated  than  in  the  case  where, 
after  keeping  them  off  his  land  for  more  than  six  years, 
a  Scottish  Duke  allowed  a  congregation  the  use  of  a 
gravel-pit  for  purposes  of  worship,  whereupon  they  sent 
him  a  resolution  of  thanks  ! 

In  the  large  cities  tyranny  of  this  kind  cannot,  of 
course,  be  exercised,  but  it  is  in  the  large  cities  that  the 
slavery  resulting  from  the  reduction  of  land  to  private 
ownership  assumes  the  darkest  shades.  Negro  slavery 
had  its  horrors,  but  they  were  not  so  many  or  so  black  as 
those  constantly  occurring  in  such  cities.  Their  own 
selfish  interests,  if  not  their  human  sympathies  or  the 
restraint  of  public  opinion,  would  have  prevented  the 
owners  of  negro  slaves  from  lodging  and  feeding  and 
working  them  as  many  of  the  so-called  free  people  in 
the  centres  of  civilization  are  lodged  and  fed  and 
worked. 

With  all  allowance  for  the  prepossessions  of  a  great 
landlord,  it  is  difficult  to  understand  how  the  Duke  of 
Argyll  can  regard  as  an  animating  scene  the  history  of 
agricultural  improvement  in  Scotland  since  1745.  From 
the  date  mentioned,  and  the  fact  that  he  is  a  High¬ 
lander,  I  presume  that  he  refers  mainly  to  the  High. 


74 


PROPERTY  IK  LAND. 


lands.  But  as  a  parallel  to  calling  this  history  “  animat- 
ing,”  I  can  think  of  nothing  so  close  as  the  observation 
of  an  economist  of  the  Duke’s  school,  who,  in  an  ac¬ 
count  of  a  visit  to  Scotland,  a  generation  or  so  ago,  spoke 
of  the  pleasure  with  which,  in  a  workhouse,  he  had  seen 
“  both  sexes  and  all  ages,  even  to  infants  of  two  and 
three  years,  earning  their  living  by  picking  oakum,”  or 
as  the  expression  of  pride  with  which  a  Polish  noble,  in 
the  last  century,  pointed  out  to  an  English  visitor  some 
miserable-looking  creatures  wlio;  he  said,  were  samples 
of  the  serfs,  any  one  of  whom  lie  could  kick  as  he 
pleased  ! 

“  Thousands  and  thousands  of  acres,”  says  the  Duke, 
4  ‘  have  been  reclaimed  from  barren  wastes  ;  ignorance 
has  given  place  to  science,  and  barbarous  customs  of 
immemorial  strength  have  been  replaced  by  habits  of  in¬ 
telligence  and  business.”  This  is  one  side  of  the 
picture,  but  unfortunately  there  is  another  side — chief¬ 
tains  taking  advantage  of  the  reverential  affection  of 
their  clansmen,  and  their  ignorance  of  a  foreign  language 
and  a  foreign  law,  to  reduce  those  clansmen  to  a  con¬ 
dition  of  virtual  slavery  ;  to  rob  them  of  the  land  which 
by  immemorial  custom  they  had  enjoyed  ;  to  substitute 
for  the  mutual  tie  that  bound  chief  to  vassal  and  vassal 
to  chief,  the  cold  maxims  of  money-making  greed  ;  to 
drive  them  from  their  homes  that  sheep  might  have 
place,  or  to  hand  them  over  to  the  tender  mercies  of  a 
great  farmer. 

“  There  has  been  grown,”  says  the  Duke,  “  more 
corn,  more  potatoes,  more  turnips  ;  there  has  been  pro¬ 
duced  more  milk,  more  butter,  more  cheese,  mere  beef, 
more  mutton,  more  pork,  more  fowls  and  eggs.”  But 
what  becomes  of  them  ?  The  Duke  must  know  that  the 
ordinary  food  of  the  common  people  is  meal  and 


THE  ce  REDUCTION  TO  INIQUITY. 53 


75 


potatoes  ;  that  of  these  many  do  not  get  enough  ;  that 
many  would  starve  outright  if  they  were  not  kept  alive 
by  charity.  Even  the  wild  meat  which  their  fathers 
took  freely,  the  common  people  cannot  now  touch.  A 
Highland  poor-law  physician,  whose  district  is  on  the 
estate  of  a  prominent  member  of  the  Liberal  party,  was 
telling  me  recently  of  the  miserable  poverty  of  the  peo¬ 
ple  among  whom  his  official  duties  lie,  and  how  in¬ 
sufficient  and  monotonous  food  was  beginning  to  produce 
among  them  diseases  like  the  pellegria  in  Italy,  when  I 
asked  him  if  they  could  not,  despite  the  gamekeepers, 
take  for  themselves  enough  fish  and  game  to  vary  their 
diet.  “  They  never  think  of  it,”  he  replied  ;  “  they  are 
too  cowed.  Why,  the  moment  any  one  of  them  was 
even  suspected  of  cultivating  a  taste  for  trout  or  grouse, 
he  would  be  driven  off  the  estate  like  a  mad  dog.55 

Besides  the  essays  and  journals  referred  to  by  the  Duke 
of  Argyll,  there  is  another  publication,  which  any  one 
wishing  to  be  informed  on  the  subject  may  read  with 
advantage,  though  not  with  pleasure.  It  is  entitled 
66  Highland  Clearances,55  and  is  published  in  Inverness 
by  A.  McKenzie.  There  is  nothing  in  savage  life  more 
cold-bloodedly  atrocious  than  the  warfare  here  recorded 
as  carried  on  against  the  clansmen  by  those  who  were 
their  hereditary  protectors.  The  burning  of  houses  ; 
the  ejection  of  old  and  young  ;  the  tearing  down  of 
shelters  put  up  to  shield  women  with  child  and  tender 
infants  from  the  bitter  night  blast  ;  the  threats  of  similar 
treatment  against  all  who  should  give  them  hospitality  ; 
the  forcing  of  poor  helpless  creatures  into  emigrant  ships 
which  carried  them  to  strange  lands  and  among  a  people 
of  whose  tongue  they  were  utterly  ignorant,  to  die  in 
many  cases  like  rotten  sheep  or  to  be  reduced  to  utter 
degradation.  An  animating  scene  truly  !  Great  dis- 


76 


PROPERTY  IK  LAND. 


tricts  once  peopled  with  a  race,  rude  it  may  be  and 
slavish  to  their  chiefs,  but  still  a  race  of  manly  virtues, 
brave,  kind,  and  hospitable — now  tenanted  only  by  sheep 
or  cattle,  by  grouse  or  deer  !  No  one  can  read  of  the 
atrocities  perpetrated  upon  the  Scottish  people,  during 
what  is  called  “  the  improvement  of  the  Highlands,55 
without  feeling  something  like  utter  contempt  for  men 
who,  lions  abroad,  were  such  sheep  at  home  that  they 
suffered  these  outrages  without  striking  a  blow,  even  if 
an  ineffectual  one.  But  the  explanation  of  this  reveals 
a  lower  depth  in  the  “  reduction  to  iniquity.55  The  rea¬ 
son  of  the  tame  submission  of  the  Highland  people  to 
outrages  which  should  have  nerved  the  most  timid  is  to 
be  found  in  the  prostitution  of  their  religion.  The 
Highland  people  are  a  deeply  religious  people,  and  dur¬ 
ing  these  evictions  their  preachers  preached  to  them  that 
their  trials  were  the  visitations  of  the  Almighty  and  must 
be  submitted  to  under  the  penalty  of  eternal  damna¬ 
tion  ! 

1  met  accidentally  in  Scotland,  recently,  a  lady  of  the 
small  landlord  class,  and  the  conversation  turned  upon 
the  poverty  of  the  Highland  people.  tc  Yes,  they  are 
poor,55  she  said,  “  but  they  deserve  to  be  poor  ;  they  are 
so  dirty.  1  have  no  sympathy  with  women  who  won’t 
keep  their  houses  neat  and  their  children  tidy. 55 

I  suggested  that  neatness  could  hardly  be  expected 
from  women  who  every  day  had  to  trudge  for  miles  with 
creels  of  peat  and  seaweed  on  their  backs. 

“  Yes,55  she  said,  “  they  do  have  to  work  hard.  But 
that  is  not  so  sad  as  the  hard  lives  of  the  horses.  Did 
you  ever  think  of  the  horses  ?  They  have  to  work  all 
their  lives — till  they  can’t  work  any  longer.  It  makes 
me  sad  to  think  of  it.  There  ought  to  be  big  farms 
where  horses  should  be  turned  out  after  they  had  worked 


77 


THE  “REDUCTION  TO  INIQUITY.  ” 

some  years,  so  that  they  might  have  time  to  enjoy  them¬ 
selves  before  they  died.” 

“  But  the  people  ?”  I  interposed.  66  They,  too,  have 
to  work  till  they  can’t  work  longer.” 

u  Oh,  yes  !”  she  replied,  66  but  the  people  have 
souls,  and  even  if  they  do  have  a  hard  time  of  it  here, 
they  will,  if  they  are  good,  go  to  heaven  when  they  die, 
and  be  happy  hereafter.  But  the  poor  beasts  have  no 
souls,  and  if  they  don’t  enjoy  themselves  here,  they  have 
no  chance  of  enjoying  themselves  at  all.  It  is  too 
bad  !” 

The  woman  was  in  sober  earnest.  And  I  question  if 
she  did  not  fairly  represent  much  that  has  been  taught 
in  Scotland  as  Christianity.  But  at  last,  thank  God  ! 
the  day  is  breaking,  and  the  blasphemy  that  has  been 
preached  as  religion  will  not  be  heard  much  longer. 
The  manifesto  of  the  Scottish  Land  Restoration  League, 
calling  upon  the  Scottish  people  to  bind  themselves 
together  in  solemn  league  and  covenant  for  the  extirpa¬ 
tion  of  the  sin  and  shame  of  landlordism  is  a  lark’s  note 
in  the  dawn. 

As  in  Scotland  so  elsewhere.  I  have  spoken  par¬ 
ticularly  of  Scotland  only  because  the  Duke  does  so. 
But  everywhere  that  our  civilization  extends  the  same 
primary  injustice  is  bearing  the  same  evil  fruits.  And 
everywhere  the  same  spirit  is  rising,  the  same  truth  is 
beginning  to  force  its  way. 


